Children's Exposure to Television Advertising: Implications for Childhood Obesity

Abstract

In 2005, the Institute of Medicine declared that the prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States ranks as a major health concern. Although the role of television advertising as a possible contributor has received considerable research attention, most previous studies have not included a detailed analysis of children's exposure on all programming or made comparisons with earlier estimates. Therefore, the Bureau of Economics staff at the Federal Trade Commission undertook a comprehensive analysis of television advertising to determine how many and what types of advertisements children are exposed to today and how the findings compare with their exposure before the rise in obesity. This article presents the major findings of the Federal Trade Commission's report and discusses several other issues that help inform the obesity debate. The article's insights will be useful to policy makers, researchers, marketers, and other constituencies involved in developing solutions to the obesity problem.

If It's Useful and You Know It, Do You Eat? Preschoolers Refrain from Instrumental Food

“…We test these predictions among children 3-5 years old because they are at the beginning of learning about foodrelated persuasion attempts in person and through the media (Desrochers and Holt 2007;Powell, Szczypka, and Chaloupka 2007). As such, understanding information processing among these young children and how these messages affect their behavior is important.…”

Do children's cognitive advertising defenses reduce their desire for advertised products?

“…Children were asked how often they had seen each program; response options were 1 (never), 2 (sometimes), 3 (often), or 4 (very often). Combining advertising broadcast data with children's program viewing frequency has been argued to be an accurate method to assess children's advertising exposure (Buijzen, 2009;Desrochers and Holt, 2007;Slater, 2004). The total score of children's advertising exposure was calculated by averaging the scores on the six programs (Cronbach's α ϭ .54, range ϭ 1Ϫ4, M ϭ 2.62, SD ϭ .53).…”

Instruments for analysing the influence of advertising on children's food choices

“…2 At the same time, although less manifest channels like the internet or in-school marketing activities are increasingly being used to target tweens (prepubescent children aged between 8-12 years) and teens, 3 television is still the most heavily used medium for children aged 2-13 years, and the advertisements aired are still successful influencers. 4 For instance, 2-to 11-year-old television (TV) viewers in the United States are exposed to about 5500 food commercials annually 5 Fa fact that challenges and exacerbates parents' roles as gatekeepers. Additionally, despite the industry's awareness of the negative influence of advertising on the formation of healthier food habits, 6 most foods advertised are rather unhealthy; that is, high in sugar, fat and/or salt.…”