Advertising aimed directly at kids has long been linked to an
increased risk that children will make unhealthy food choices and
press their parents to buy them more processed, sugary, and
calorie-loaded foods at the store, previous research has found.
For the current study, researchers surveyed parents of 624
preschool-age children every eight weeks for a year to see what
network television shows kids watched and how often they ate
breakfast cereals promoted in ads during these programs. The study
focused on 10 cereals: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa
Puffs, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Fruity Pebbles, Honey-Nut
Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Reese's Puffs and Trix.
Children who saw ads for specific sugary cereals in the past week,
as well as at any time during the study period, were significantly
more likely to eat those cereals than kids who didn't see the ads at
all, researchers report in the American Journal of Preventive
Medicine.
Parents may not be aware of how much advertising can influence what
kids demand for breakfast, said lead author Jennifer Emond of the
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New
Hampshire.
"These young children don't buy these cereals on their own," Emond
said by email.
"Instead, it's likely that children see TV ads for these cereals and
then ask their parents to buy the advertised brands," Emond added.
Parents may be able to limit this influence by switching to ad-free
programming for kids, Emond advised.
The children in the study were between 3 and 5 years old.
The cereals in the study had the most sugar among brands advertised
to children, with about 9 to 12 grams of added sugar per ounce. That
translates to more than 28 grams per serving, exceeding the maximum
amount of daily recommended sugar intake for kids, researchers note.
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To determine if kids saw ads for certain cereals, researchers asked
parents about how much time children spent watching 11 national
children's networks. Then, researchers looked at how often the
networks aired ads for specific cereals; they assumed kids saw these
ads if they aired often on networks the children watched a lot.
Children who saw ads within the past week were 34 percent more
likely to eat specific sugary cereals than kids who didn't see the
ads, the researchers found. And seeing the ads at any point during
the study was associated with a 23 percent higher likelihood of
consuming sugary cereals. The combination of seeing the ads in the
past week and at any time during the study period was tied to a 37
percent higher likelihood children would eat the cereals.
The study can't prove whether the ads caused children to eat more
sugary cereals, and it also did not examine how eating these cereals
might impact children's health.
"It is always difficult to evaluate the long-term effect of eating
such cereals," said Helen Coulthard, a researcher at De Montfort
University in Leicester, UK, who wasn't involved in the study.
While a bowl of these cereals often has as much sugar as an entire
candy bar, the health effects depend on how much sugar is in the
other things kids eat and drink, Coulthard said by email.
Among other things, consuming too much sugar in childhood is
associated with an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and certain
behavior and emotional problems.
"The problem is that high-sugar cereals are only one of many
high-sugar products that children will eat in a day," Coulthard
added.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2UUGbMc American Journal of Preventive
Medicine, online December 17, 2018.
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