Television Food Ads Promote Poor Nutrition

The headline above clearly seems obvious, doesn't it?  If you are like me and many other individuals, when you first read the blog title images of kid snacks and cereals typically advertised during Saturday morning cartoons floated through your head.  However, the extent to which television ads promote poor nutrition is apparently much greater than many realize.

New research published in the June 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association provides some pretty scary numbers.  The purpose of this study was to compare the nutritional profile of foods advertised on television at the serving size shown to current nutritional guidelines and recommended daily servings.  To make this comparison, the study investigators observed food advertisements for a total of 96 hours, 84 hours of prime time television and 12 hours of Saturday morning television.  The study comparisons revealed that consuming a diet based on these food advertisements would over-supply a number of food groups and nutrients and under-supply several others. 

In terms of daily servings of food groups, a diet based on the advertised foods would provide more than 2,500% (25 times) of the daily servings of sugar and more than 2,000% of the daily servings of fat.  In contrast, to these enormous values of sugar and fat, a diet based on these advertisements would only provide low levels of vegetables (40% of the recommended daily servings), dairy (32%) and fruits (27%).   Similar disturbing trends were observed for specific nutrients:

• Nutrients Over-Supplied:  Protein, Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, and Sodium
•  Nutrients Under-Supplied:  Carbohydrates, Fiber, Vitamins A, E, & D, and numerous minerals including iron and calcium

While I doubt that this news actually surprises many people, the extent to which advertised food differs from accepted nutritional guidelines is probably much greater that most people realized.  Sadly, despite our current obesity epidemic, many of the foods advertised on television consist of food groups that have been suggested to increase obesity risk and lower overall health.  One of my blog posts last week discussed the increased obesity risk from television watching in regards to increased sedentary time and decrease physical activity.  This new report emphasizes the large impact television can have on obesity risk.  Not only does television watching reduce physical activity, but it also appears to promote imbalanced, unhealthy eating behaviors.  Increased obesity awareness and knowledge of healthy eating behaviors are more important than ever in light of these current findings.

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