Junk food ads lead kids to poor food choices: study

Advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages have an immediate and significant impact on children and lead to harmful diets, according to Canadian research.

The study by researchers at McMaster University, published in the scientific journal Obesity Reviews, examined 29 trials assessing the effects of unhealthy food and beverage marketing and analysing kilojoule intake and dietary preference among more than 6000 children. Researchers found that the marketing increased dietary intake and influenced dietary preference in children during or shortly after exposure to advertisements.

Lead author of the study Behnam Sadeghirad, a PhD student in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics, said that these findings demonstrate the influence that these advertisements have on children’s food choices.

For the study, Sadeghirad’s team looked at previous studies that examined advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages through television and movie commercials, video games, use of branded logos, packaging with licensed characters and booklet/magazine ads.

When children were exposed to unhealthy advertisements, they consumed significantly more unhealthy than healthy kilojoules, the study found. The findings also suggest that younger children (≤8 years of age) might be more susceptible to the impact of food and beverage marketing in terms of quantity and quality of kilojoules consumed.

The researchers say these findings are particularly important considering that unhealthy foods account for greater than 80% of all televised food advertisements in Canada, the United States and Germany.

“Overall, our analyses show the need for a review of public policy on child-targeted unhealthy food and beverage marketing,” added Bradley Johnston, corresponding author of the study, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster and director of SORT (Systematic Overviews through advancing Research Technology) at The Hospital for Sick Children.

“The increasing prevalence of obesity seems to further coincide with marked increases in the food and beverage industry’s budget for marketing aimed at children and youth, with data showing that energy-dense, low-nutrient foods and beverages make up the majority of commercially marketed products,” he said.