What would you eat if your food choices were based on TV ads? A new study in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association looking at the nutritional content of foods advertized on prime-time and kids’-time TV suggests you’d be eating a very imbalanced diet, rich in (guess what?) sugar fat and salt.
The authors, led by Michael Mink, PhD, analyzed ads placed in 84 hours of prime-time and 12 hours of Saturday morning (cartoon-time) broadcast in the four major US networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC). Each advertized food item was then analyzed for nutritional content.
Here’s what they found:
• Of 3,584 total ads 614 (or 17 percent) were for foods. There were 3 food ads for every 30 minutes of broadcast• A 2000 calorie diet consisting entirely of advertized foods would contain 25 times the recommended daily intake of sugar, and 20 times the recommended daily intake of fat
• During the 96 TV hours observed there were 116 public service announcements—none addressed nutritional education
• The hypothetical TV ad diet oversupplies the same nutrients Americans are known to consume too much of: protein (lots of meat), sodium, fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol
Do TV ads influence food choices?
Americans are exposed to TV for almost 7 hours a day, and food and beverage related TV ad spending was $11.26 billion in 2004. To put this sum in perspective: The federal budget for the 5-A-Day program (promoting fruits and veggies) was just $4.85 million and the entire US Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrition education budget was $268 million for the same year. I’m sure food and beverage makers see proven results for their mass spending—otherwise they wouldn’t be incurring these costs.
Ads do affect our consumption habits, and are especially effective on the very young. Most toddlers can’t tell programming and advertising apart and many toddlers have been known to sing the tunes and repeat the message after being exposed to some ads just once, and to remain loyal to a brand forever.
Suggestions for a healthier advertizing environment
The authors have a few recommendations:
• Consumer education: Let the public know that food advertizing has a bias for foods that provide a whole day’s worth of sugar and fat in a single serving• Food industry education and collaboration: Let food makers know they’re promoting nutritionally imbalanced foods (Does anyone actually believe they aren’t aware of that?)
• Public media strategies: Air more public service announcements to balance the nutrition message
• Regulation: Require nutritional warnings for imbalanced foods similar to those mandated on direct-to-consumer drug ads
I’d like to add a few suggestions of my own:
• Teach your kids how to apply critical thinking skills to the ads they see: here’s a Federal Trade Commission website with some great tools and fun games that may help• Turn the TV off: Sorry, I know some say we’re in the midst of a new golden age of TV, and there are some very good programs to watch, but I truly believe that watching much less TV is a health promoting bit of advice, especially if you have kids at home. The 1 to 2 hours of quality programming per day upper limit suggested by the American Academy of Pediatrics seems indulgent enough
I assume the researchers are still recovering from the 96-hour TV overload.
Dr. Ayala
Read more from Dr. Ayala at http://herbalwater.typepad.com/
Follow Dr. Ayala on Twitter
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Spencer Thripworth III
Lunchlady 2
Somyr Perry
KevinCM
Kay W
asia rein
Salon.com
Comments
Happy to hear about those TV house rules. For young kids, almost anything they do (including being bored) is better than watching TV :)
I agree—the diet industry ads are just as negative to our psyche and habits as the junk-food ads.
I watched the French Open men's finals yesterday, and Rafael Nadal drank water and ate a few bites of banana at critical points in the match (Nadal is well known for his banana habits)—to me that balanced the health message quite well.
I love your "Cheap Bastid" schtik.
However, a lot of what gets into the house is there because PARENTS WANT IT. Remember most parents today were born AFTER 1970 or so, and grew up on sugary treats, pre-packaged convenience foods and fast food. This is their natural cuisine, what they grew up on. Telling them not to eat this is like trying to convince 2 billion Chinese people not to eat any more rice; JUNK is their "regional cuisine".
If your mom and dad eat sugarly cereal every morning for breakfast, along with a pop tart, so will you. I am constantly shocked at the many young parents I know who routinely feed their children pop tarts, apparently believing that this is a perfectly legit OK breakfast food -- despite the fact it is all sugar and carbs, has FROSTING (in my ancient day, the original pop tart was plain) and SPRINKLES and is in "flavors" like hot fudge sundae, strawberry shake, s'mores, and so on. One pop tart has something like 400 calories -- that is a HUGE amount for a kindergardener!
Then there are chicken nuggets, maybe the worst food invented in the last 100 years. I often wonder if chicken nuggets, singlehandedly have created the childhood obesity epidemic. BEFORE chicken nuggets, children actually ate (were EXPECTED TO EAT) real sources of protein like chicken, turkey, beef...to eat what the family ate, to eat a meal of protein/carb/fat including veggies and side dishes. NOW many children subsist almost entirely on chicken nuggets (frozen and reheated at home, or the fast food variety) and if that isn't bad enough, they are trained to DIP chunks of FRIED CHICKEN into ketchup, "ranch dressing" or worse sweetened sauces. Some children I know will now not eat ANYTHING that is not "dipped" into some kind of very fattening sauce.
This was utterly unheard of just 3 decades ago. I can't believe nobody has really done research into the impact of these things on children's diet and weight. We rant about "the schools" and the horrible foods served there -- rightly -- but forget that MOST EATING occurs outside of school, and that children learn what is "good to eat" from THEIR PARENTS...whatever YOU DO AS A PARENT goes right into the eyes and ears and mind of little impressionable kids, and will determine how they eat, what they like, what they consider healthy or delicious or fun or "bad" or fattening.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I couldn’t agree more regarding the central role of parents’ modeling on kids’ eating habits.
These companies are aiming for our wallets. If we let them in there then we are as much a part of the problem as they are.
She watches movies occasionally, and special events like the Olympics. And she's kept off her 80 pounds.
“We're voting with our dollars and feet.”—there lies our power.
Good luck with your edible garden. I get a lot of joy from mine.
Great comment. Thanks. The snacking-while-watching-TV is responsible for lots of mindless eating and a really hard habit to break.
It’s a pity a lot of sports events—including the Olympics and the World Cup--are sponsored by junk- and fast-food, diluting the health message sports could have.
The only way I see ad content changing for the better is if consumers push back and demand more truth in advertizing—not likely.
Agree about the wisdom of small changes, and it is really sad that poverty predisposes to obesity in so many ways.
And viva critical thinking skills! I f i could make us all do one thing,it would be to teach/understand Logical Fallacies, along with the Pledge of Allegiance.