New Study Confirms Vast Majority of Ads Seen by Kids Promote Foods High in Sugar, Fat or Sodium

The overwhelming majority of food-product advertisements seen on television by American children and adolescents are for products of poor nutritional content, according to a major new study published today in Pediatrics. In the most comprehensive effort to date to assess the nutritional content of food advertisements viewed on television by children, researchers found that 97.8 percent and 89.4 percent of all food advertisements viewed by children ages 2 to 11 and adolescents ages 12 to 17, respectively, were for products high in sugar, fat or sodium.

The advertised products were particularly high in sugar: on average, 46.1 percent and 49.1 percent of total calories among the products advertised came from sugar in the ads viewed by children ages 2 to 11 and adolescents ages 12 to 17, respectively. The study, Nutritional Content of Television Food Advertisements Seen by Children and Adolescents in the United States, defined a food as being high in sugar if more than 25 percent of calories came from sugar. In addition, 97.6 percent of cereal advertisements seen by children ages 2 to 11 were for high-sugar cereals.

“Our study documents the stark realities of television food advertising to children,” said lead researcher Lisa M. Powell, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Bridging the Gap national research program, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Previous studies have shown that children’s food preferences may be influenced by food advertising. This study confirms the very poor nutritional content of the foods being marketed to our children, and makes it incumbent on food companies to change their advertising practices.”

Over a nine-month period from 2003 to 2004, researchers drew samples from 170 top-rated television shows among children ages 2 to 11 and adolescents ages 12 to 17 using ratings data from Nielsen Media Research. Each food-product advertisement and its related nutritional content were weighted using the television ratings data to determine actual exposures across each age and race category. For children ages 2 to 11, a total of 50,351 food-product advertisements were assessed. For children ages 12 to 17, 47,955 food-product ads were assessed. Because the length of advertisements varied, for measurement purposes, advertisements were tallied into 30 second intervals. For example, two 15-second advertisements were weighted as equivalent to one 30-second advertisement.

This study is the first to use television ratings data to draw a large sample that is representative of the viewing patterns of children and adolescents and to weight the nutritional content of each advertisement, given that some ads are viewed more than others. Previous studies selected shows from certain time slots (e.g., Saturday morning) and examined nutritional content based on the airing of the ad, which does not allow for measurement of actual exposures.

The study found no substantial differences in the nutritional content of food advertisements seen by black and white children ages 2 to 11. However, black adolescents ages 12 to 17 did view a slightly higher proportion of food advertisements, in general, and ads for high-sugar food products, in particular, than did their white peers. Across all food products, 91.1 percent of advertisements seen by black adolescents were high in either sugar, fat or sodium, compared with 88.8 percent of food ads seen by white teens.

“Clearly our kids are getting bombarded with poor nutritional messages every day,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has committed $500 million over the next five years to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. “The food industry could and should be part of the solution, but they’ll need to change their marketing practices.”

For instance, said Lavizzo-Mourey, industry should put its marketing muscle behind promoting healthier foods to kids, and should stop using licensed characters to market foods of poor nutritional value.
 
About Bridging the Gap

Bridging the Gap, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is a joint project of the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy and the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. It is intended to improve our understanding of the role of policy and environmental factors in youth alcohol consumption, illicit drug and tobacco use, as well as diet and physical activity. Bridging the Gap also evaluates the effectiveness of policies and changes in environmental conditions in reducing substance use and obesity among youth. For more information, visit www.impacteen.org and www.yesresearch.org.  

This news release was reproduced with permission of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, N.J. For more information about the foundation, visit www.rwjf.org.