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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Turn Off The Television To Help Reduce Obesity Risk

The incidence of childhood obesity continues to increase around the world.  There are many factors associated with obesity, whether it is childhood or adult obesity.  Two related factors that are most commonly linked with the incidence of being overweight or obese are the lack of physical activity and the high rate of sedentary behaviors, particularly television watching.  Research reports have suggested that television watching is associated with higher body mass index scores and poorer overall health.  Because of this, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that television time for children be limited to no more than 1-2 hours of quality programming per day.  Some research even suggests that children's total screen time (television, computer use, and video games) should be limited to less than one hour per day in order to reduce the incidence of being overweight.

It is often suggested that parents need to set a good example for their children by adopting healthier habits in regards to physical and sedentary behaviors; however, the actual impact of parental behaviors on subsequent child behaviors remain unclear.  A new research study (free to read online or download) from the UK suggests that our television viewing habits as parents is strongly linked to our children's television viewing habits. For this study, the researchers examined physical activity measurements, overall sedentary time, and self-reported television viewing time from over 400 parent-child pairs.   The investigators reported that:

• For both 10-11 year old boys and girls, sedentary time was positively linked to parental sedentary time such that as parental inactivity increased, so did their child's inactivity.
• The risk of girls watching more than 4 hours per day of television was nearly 4 times greater when their parents watched 2-4 hours of television.
• When parents of boys reported watching 2-4 hours of television per day, their sons were more than 10 times more likely to watch more than 4 hours of television per day.
• Unexpectedly, parental physical activity levels were not linked to the physical activity of the children, suggesting that children at this age might not readily follow parental physical activity examples.

This is interesting research that sheds more light on parent and child relationships regarding physical activity and sedentary behavior.  The biggest news from this study is that children with parents who watch more than 2 hours of television per day are more apt to watch an unhealthy amount of television themselves.  Since television watching and other sedentary behaviors have been linked to poor health and increased body weight, it is important for parents to monitor their own level of television viewing in order to help reduce childhood inactivity.  It is also important for parents to develop strategies to reduce child sedentary behaviors and encourage physical activity.

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