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TV food advertisements may increase preschoolers' eating in the absence of hunger
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Reduced exposure to TV food advertisements in preschool-aged children may decrease the priming and reinforcement of dietary behavior that lead to obesity and energy-dense food preferences, according to published study findings in the journal Pediatrics.
“According to the Reactivity to Embedded Food Cues in Advertising Model, children have physiological responses to food cues within advertisements that prompt children to eat that food or similar highly palatable foods, foods that are intrinsically rewarding,” Jennifer A. Emond, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics and biomedical data science at Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “In turn, the consumption of such foods reinforces those responses. However, because of their age, young children have a limited lifetime exposure to food advertising and thus likely have a less developed conditioned response than older children.”
To assess the effect of TV food advertisements on cued eating among children aged 5 years and younger, Emond and colleagues conducted a randomized study including 60 preschool-aged children and their parent or caregiver living in the Hanover, N.H. area during 2015 and 2016. To address excess calorie consumption that is not a result of hunger using the “eating in absence of hunger” laboratory paradigm, the researchers offered children 50 g peeled banana, 58 g of sliced cheese, 28 g of crackers and a cup of water to consume until satisfied prior to viewing food and non-food TV advertisements in the study. Parents or caregivers completed questionnaires while children were observed.
The researchers randomly assigned the children 1 to 1 to watch a 14-minute TV show that included a mixture of commercials for either one food (Bugles corn chips) or a national department store. Children in the food commercial group were unfamiliar with the marketed product. The researchers hypothesized that the children viewing the food advertisements would consume more snack foods than the children viewing the national department store advertisements.
Analysis showed that children in the food advertisement group consumed a greater number of kilocalories during the “eating in absence of hunger” phase than the children in the non-food advertisement group (126.8 kcal, standard deviation [SD]: 58.5 vs. 97.3 kcal, SD: 52.3; P = .04), that yielded increased consumption of the advertised food (difference in group means: 21.7 kcals; P < .01). Average consumed food among the children in the non-food advertisement group did not change (P = .43).
“Our study is the first to demonstrate that food advertisement exposure among preschool-age children increases cued consumption of food, findings that align with those among older children,” the researchers wrote. “Our study used a food children were not familiar with, suggesting that relatively little exposure to a food brand through TV food advertisements can prime excess caloric consumption of that branded food among young children.” – by Kate Sherrer
Disclosure: This study was funded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant R21HD076097 and National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant P20GM104416. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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