Children Are Still Bombarded With Unhealthy Food Ads While Watching TV

While children are watching TV during shows that are targeted at their age group, they are bombarded with commercials for products with too much added sugar, saturated fat or sodium, according to a new study.

The study, which was published online today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona and the University of Pennsylvania.

They compared 10 weeks of food ads that aired during children's programming on broadcast and cable TV in 2007, before the self-regulation initiative began, with a similar sample of food ads that aired in 2013, four years after the initiative was fully up and running.

Researchers compared the foods advertised to previous proposed U.S. nutrition guidelines for foods marketed to kids. The proposal was not adopted, and it's not surprising to see that most foods advertised on TV would not comply with it, said lead author Melanie D. Hingle of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

"It's very politically charged," she said. "The take home message is really not about what would be or could be, but that this independent group of experts in different communities said these are guidelines that make sense nutritionally, and hardly any of these ads meet these guidelines," Hingle told Reuters Health by phone.

"Food ads that are out there right now are not passing any kind of muster," she said.

However, some food companies launched the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative at the end of 2006, pledging to cut back on marketing unhealthy foods to children under 12.

Lots of the biggest names in food are part of this initiative: from Kraft Foods and Kellogg to McDonald's USA and The Coca-Cola Company. And from their perspective, there's been lots of progress.

The researchers recorded 103 shows aimed at children under age 12 on five broadcast networks and two cable channels between February and April 2013. There were 354 food ads in the TV sample.