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Unhealthy foods commonly, positively portrayed in children’s TV programs
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Unhealthy food and drinks are commonly and positively portrayed in children’s television programs broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland, according to study findings in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Paul Scully, MB, DPM, MRCPsych, MD, of the University Hospital Limerick in Ireland, and colleagues assessed children’s television programs broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE) for 5 weekdays between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. in July and October 2010. BBC and RTE are national public broadcast channels that do not show any commercial product advertising. Researchers looked for food or beverage cues, defined as “a product being displayed within a food-specific context with potential to be consumed.”
There were 1,155 food and beverage cues during 82.5 hours of content. Total time involving food was 3.94 hours, or 4.8%. The United States was the most common country of program origin (39.5%), followed by the United Kingdom (23.2%) and Ireland (15.9%).
The most common food types were unspecified and could not be categorized into a distinct food group, accounting for 16.6%, followed by sweet snacks (13.3%); sweets/candy (11.4%); and fruit (11.2%). The most common beverages were unspecified (35%), followed by teas/coffee (13.5%) and sugar-sweetened (13%).
Unhealthy foods accounted for 47.5% of specified food cues and sugar-sweetened beverages accounted for 25% of specified beverage cues.
Thirty-five percent of cues were visual; 25.6% were verbal; and 39.4% were both visual and verbal.
Motivating factors were most commonly celebratory/social, accounting for 25.2% of cues, followed by hunger/thirst (25%); reward (4.5%); health-related (2.2%); and punishment (1.2%).
“Eating and drinking are common activities within children-specific programming with unhealthy foods and beverages, especially common and frequently associated with positive motivating factors, and seldom seen with negative outcomes. … We suggest that parents, policymakers and physicians should be aware of the frequent portrayals of unhealthy food and beverages in a positive light in children’s television programming. Future children’s television programs should address this by including frequent and positively associated connotations with healthy foods and behaviors,” the researchers concluded.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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