Children are seeing far fewer ads for junk food during kids’ TV shows, a new study finds.

The number of food and drink ads during children’s programs has dropped by more than 95%, according to researchers’ analysis of television Nielsen ratings.

This decline occurred following a 2006 pledge by the food industry to stop advertising unhealthy foods during kid’s TV shows, researchers said.

However, researchers found that children younger than 12 still see more than 1,000 food-related ads a year, and that 60% of them are for unhealthy products like sugary sodas and salty or fatty snacks.

“Kids are still seeing about a thousand ads per year on other programs, and the majority of ads that kids see are still for unhealthy products,” said researcher Lisa Powell, director of health policy and administration in the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health.

“This is important as the World Health Organization has recognized that reducing children’s exposure to unhealthy food and beverage advertisements is a key strategy for improving both children’s diets and health,” Powell added in a university news release.

A group of food, beverage and restaurant companies pledged in 2006 to advertise only healthy products on TV programming where at least 35% of viewers are under 12. They later revised their pledge in 2014 and 2020 to establish nutritional criteria for what qualifies as unhealthy.

But researchers found that as much as 90% of the food ads kids see are run during shows with lower child-audience shares.

This shift suggests that regulations might want to focus on advertising during hours when kids are more likely to watch television, rather than focusing specifically on children’s programming, the researchers said.

The results also showed that Black children saw significantly more food ads than white kids, due in part to more time spent watching TV.

The new study was published Aug. 22 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Future regulations should also consider food ads that run on other forms of media, such as streaming or social media. In general, children spend less time watching TV these days, researchers noted.

“We know that the media kids consume is changing. They’re spending more time on their mobile devices, whether it be a tablet or a phone, and they’re seeing a lot of ads,” Powell said. “We really need to understand where else the food companies target kids and what they’re seeing.”

More information

The World Health Organization has more on food marketing and children.

SOURCE: University of Illinois-Chicago, news release, Aug. 22, 2024

Source: HealthDay