Nutritional Content of Food and Beverage Products in Television Advertisements Seen on Children's Programming

Abstract

Most food and beverage products in TV ads seen by children do not meet the IWG nutrition recommendations and less than one half of such ads are covered by self-regulation. Products advertised on children's versus general-audience programming and by CFBAI- versus non-CFBAI-member companies are particularly of low nutritional quality, suggesting that self-regulation has not successfully protected children from exposure to advertising for unhealthy foods and that continued monitoring is required.

Regulation of food marketing to children: are statutory or industry self-governed systems effective?

“…Furthermore, 86 % of food ads viewed by children promoted HFSS products in 2009 compared with 94 % before companies enacted their CFBAI pledges (10) . In addition, the nutritional quality of products advertised on children's television remains worse than those advertised during programming for older audiences (11) . As a result, improvements in food marketing to children associated with industry self-regulation have been small and slow.…”

Effects of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption, a Socio-Economic Factor of Adolescent Obesity in Surakarta City

“…Another supporting study is Powell et al (2013), it finds that the adolescents aged 6-11 years have a higher chance for obesity because they like watching advertisements on TV. These advertisements often present nutrient poor foods, so the adolescents have food references which change their eating pattern and increase weight.…”

Children’s Food and Beverage Promotion on Television to Parents

“…The children's foods and beverages identified in this study are consistent with those heavily promoted to children on television, based on published Nielsen viewership data. 4,23 These products fall short of nutritional guidelines set by the Interagency Working Group, [23][24][25] a federal working group charged with improving the quality of foods marketed to children on television. Thus, study findings document the considerable frequency with which manufacturers target parents for children's foods and beverages of questionable nutritional quality.…”

“…12,23,31 In particular, the findings for sugar-sweetened beverages (fruit drinks and flavored milk) are of concern. Sugarsweetened beverages were the second most heavily promoted item during the study year, with 60.1% of the airtime for sugar-sweetened fruit drinks and 100% of the airtime for chocolate milk devoted to parent-directed advertisements.…”