Study Says Junk Food
Still Dominates Youth TV

For years, health officials have warned that bombarding children with junk food commercials has contributed to the problem of childhood obesity. Food conglomerates, eager to fend off federal regulation, have made various commitments to improve, including a pledge in December to meet goals for promoting fitness and healthier foods.

The Kaiser Family Foundation{cq} released a study yesterday that it said provides a way to measure the companies’ progress. The foundation, a nonprofit group that focuses on health care issues, found that 50 percent of ad time on children’s shows is devoted to food. Among the ads aimed at children and teenagers, 72 percent are for candy, snacks, sugary cereals or fast food.

These advertisements “are largely for products that children should be eating less of, not more of, if we’re going to get a handle on childhood obesity,” said Victoria J. Rideout, director of the foundation’s program for the study of entertainment media and health.

The study’s results were presented at a two-hour event in Washington that featured recorded ads for products like Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies, Frito-Lay’s Twisted Cheetos and Nestle’s Crunch bars. According to Kaiser, only 4 percent of the ads it viewed were for dairy products and 1 percent for fruit juices. There were none for fruits or vegetables.

Food and advertising executives said that the data in the study, which looked at 2,613 ads on 13 television networks from May to September of 2005, was old and that the industry had made progress since then.

“This was a very good snapshot of 2005,” said Nancy R. Green, PepsiCo’s vice president for health and wellness policy and nutrition technology, who spoke on a panel discussing the study’s findings. “But less than 1 percent of our marketing goes to children. And we are moving to advertise our healthier products.” PepsiCo owns brands like Tropicana and Quaker.

Daniel L. Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, said the study ignored changes companies have made to minimize the exposure of less nutritious products.

“There have been changes in the marketplace over the past 18 months that included the introduction of new and reformulated products,” he said, referring, for example, to products that are lower in calories, sodium or sugar, or that contain whole grains.

The Kaiser study, which was conducted by Indiana University under Ms. Rideout’s direction, found that food is, by far, the most ubiquitous product advertised to children, followed by media, which includes movies, video games and music. Of the food ads that the study examined, 34 percent were for candy and snacks, 28 percent for cereal and 10 percent for fast food. Ms. Rideout said that almost 100 percent of the cereals were sugared.

Tweens, or children in the 8-to-12 age group, see more food ads than younger children or teenagers, the study found. Children age 8 to 12 view 21 television ads for food products every day, adding up to more than 7,600 ads a year.

Children in the 2-to-7 age range see 12 food ads a day, or about 4,400 a year. Teenagers — 13 to 18 — view 17 such commercials a day, or about 6,000 a year.

The tween total was higher, Ms. Rideout said, because they watch not only children’s channels but also other programming, including reality shows and situation comedies.

Growing awareness of childhood obesity has galvanized health-related groups to press big food marketers to cut back on junk food advertising to children. Groups that have voiced concern include the American Academy of Pediatrics, which called for a ban on ads for junk food aimed at young children, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit group.

Last December, 11 large companies, including PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and McDonald’s, agreed to adopt voluntary rules to make healthier foods or healthier lifestyles the subject of at least 50 percent of all advertising aimed at children 12 and under, said C. Lee Peeler, president of the National Advertising Review Council.

The rules did not give specific definitions of healthiness, but, under the arrangement, each company will set its own goals, he said. The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, which Mr. Peeler also leads, aims to have companies make pledges by this summer or early fall, he said.

Ms. Rideout said that the Kaiser study would help measure whether those initiatives lead to any real changes in advertising content.

The Federal Communications Commission also has a task force to examine the impact of the media on childhood obesity; its members include the Walt Disney Company, General Mills and PepsiCo along with representatives of health and consumer groups.

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who helped form the task force, spoke at the Kaiser event yesterday and warned that obesity in children was such a grave problem that government regulations could be required if advertisers did not make noticeable changes.

“We need to see some objective numbers,” said Mr. Brownback, a Republican presidential candidate. “We’ve just got to see these obesity numbers go down.”

The food industry has proposed more public service announcements promoting fitness and nutrition. But the Kaiser study found that children see few of these messages: one every few days for children under age 8, compared with 26 food ads in the same time period. For tweens, the ratio is one for every 48 food commercials, and for teenagers, one announcement for every 130 food ads.

Ms. Rideout said there was a role for public announcements, “but such educational campaigns should have limited expectations, or a substantial budget.”

The study also examined the ways the ads tried to appeal to children and teenagers. The most common appeal, said Walter Gantz of Indiana University, the author of the study, was taste — “cinnamony,” for example — a feature that was highlighted in 34 percent of the commercials. Fun came in second (18 percent), followed by premiums or contests (16 percent) then the newness or uniqueness of a product (10 percent). Only 2 percent of the ads mentioned health or nutrition as a primary or secondary appealing factor, and 5 percent mentioned gaining strength or energy; other categories measured included convenience and enjoyment.

The ads were recorded on the commercial networks, including ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox; commercial cable, including MTV, BET, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network; and PBS. They were chosen according to Nielsen Media Research data for the top 10 networks in each age group.