Food advertised on TV

Food advertised on TV

When watching TV you can't avoid the numerous adverts, especially food advertised on TV. It's always worse when food adverts are on when you're hungry, as seeing something advertised on TV has the effect of making you want to eat it. But have you ever considered the type of food advertised on TV.

Research has shown that following a diet based on food advertised on TV would mean that people are consuming 25 times more sugar and 20 times more fat than is healthy.

Conducting the research, they found that prime time programmes include commercials for single meals that have more than three times the recommended daily servings for sugars. And that a 2000-calorie diet consisting entirely of advertised foods would contain less than half of the recommended servings of vegetables, dairy, and fruits.

Yet they found that the amount of sugar and fat contained in meals promoted on television is so great that eating just one meal provides up to three times the recommended daily servings, the article 'Foods advertised on television 'sugary and fatty but not nutritious' states.

Research conducted in America

The research, which is based on an analysis of adverts on US television, has been published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

To conduct the research, researchers analysed 84 hours of prime time and 12 hours of Saturday morning broadcast television over a 28-day period in 2004.

Network sampling included Fox, NBC, ABC and CBS to obtain a complete profile of the nutritional choices presented. The investigators also include food ads run from 8am to 11am during cartoon segments that target children. Next, food for sale was reviewed, converted to serving sizes and analysed for nutrition.

The results showed that television ads heavily promote foods with protein, selenium, sodium, niacin, total fat, saturated fat, thiamin and cholesterol but fall short when it comes to advocating foods with iron, phosphorus, vitamin A, carbohydrates, calcium, vitamin E, magnesium, copper, potassium, pantothenic acid, fibre and vitamin D that are essential nutrients necessary to prevent disease, the article 'Television ads promote foods that lead to chronic illness' states.

Michael Mink, Assistant Professor at Armstrong Atlantic State University, Savannah, Georgia, who led the study, said: "The results of this study suggest the foods advertised on television tend to oversupply nutrients associated with chronic illness and under-supply nutrients that help protect against illness."

Jodie Humphries

Jodie Humphries graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA Hons in Creative Writing in 2008. She has worked for GDS Publishing for the digital group since July 2009. She has previous experience with writing for the web, running her own website since April 2007.

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