Television Advertisements Induce Children to Eat Junk: Study

Children are exposed to too many advertisements of unhealthy snacks and junk food, finds a study.

Advertisements contain cues that motivate target consumers to buy the products. Researchers examined the frequency of unhealthy food advertisements aired on British television during children's programs on weekdays.  The product cues enticing children to the junk food were coded according to the type of product, use, motivation and outcome of consuming the product.

They identified about 1,155 food and drink cues during the entire 82.5 hours of broadcast. Each cue in advertisements or programs lasted for about 13.2 seconds and over 40 percent of the content was of the products based from the U.S. Their analysis revealed sweets and confectionery were the most popular food cue. Tea and coffee accounted for 13.5 percent of the cues for beverages. Unhealthy and high caloric foods made up 47.5 percent of the food cues.

Most of these advertisements were endorsed by celebrities. Ninety percent of the times, the characters in the commercials were not overweight and obese despite being depicted as frequent eaters of junk food. Nearly one in every three and one in five cues had a positive and negative influence on its audience, respectively.  In addition, it was found only two percent of the cues were related to health.

"Eating and drinking are common activities within children specific programming, with unhealthy foods and beverages especially common and frequently associated with positive motivating factors, and seldom seen with negative outcomes," write the authors in the study.

These findings remind us of the dangers children are likely to face by consuming too much unhealthy food. Health and regulatory authorities in many countries oppose airing programs that encourage poor eating habits and unhealthy lifestyles. But they do not control the content of the program and advertisements that play a key role in persuading children to eat fatty food.

More information is available online in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.