Do Ads Make Kids Fat?

Investigating the Link Between Advertising and Childhood Obesity

By Tania Cantrell

Professor Wei-Na Lee might be called the Department of Advertising’s rabble-rouser. Her research fairly shouts out to public policy makers that the federal law regarding children’s media diet offerings needs more attention.

Under her expert magnifying glass, Lee (Ph.D. in Communications, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and her small research team have connected suspicion with fact, reaching disquieting conclusions about the role advertising plays in childhood obesity.

“There has been much discussion that advertising targets children, even adults,” Lee says. “But no factual information … nothing in print. Is media advertising to be blamed [for childhood obesity]?”

Her answer, in short: yes.

The Connecting Clues

Lee says her research all began as a curiosity. “Given current concerns of the rise of childhood obesity in America, various studies have looked into the role of food advertising … The media and, more specifically, television advertising has been criticized as the culprit of the environmental cause for obesity.”

Lee wrote those thoughts in her chapter abstract for the forthcoming book, Proceedings of the 2006 Conference of the American Academy of Advertising. The idea, TV advertising’s harmful impact on a “vulnerable” population, leapfrogged from one of her former investigations on vice product (alcohol and tobacco) billboard advertising to minorities in their neighborhood. It also caught a few graduate students’ attention.

Lee and UT Advertising doctoral student Eliana S. Tseng used a two-stage content analysis to examine the amount and general characteristics of food advertising used in some popular children’s television programming.

The team began in May 2004, looking at 31 hours of evening prime-time shows (from 7 – 10 p.m.) primarily from FOX , which included some 30 top-rated tweens’ (children from the ages of 8 to 12) shows. They noted 628 ads appearing during that time, and 198 — 32 percent — were food ads. Food products dominated, followed by gum and snacks, fast food restaurants and drinks, etc.

The first stage of their study showed that food advertising made up more than one quarter of the overall advertising content of children’s programming.

One development especially surprised Lee. “We found that more than one quarter of the ads did not use humans,” she says. “This was one interesting part of the study.”

The second stage took Lee and her team deeper. In particular, Lee and Tseng also wanted to know the actual nutritional content (ANC) of the products advertised and if any “executional elements” were used by advertisers in “unhealthy” food ads.

This led to several nearby grocery store visits to read the nutritional information on a sub sample of 64 products advertised. Based on previous research, fat, sodium, cholesterol and sugar levels were calculated to determine whether each food was healthy or unhealthy.

Generally, the advertised food products studied turned out to be unhealthy.

Finding the “executional elements” required Lee and her team to code a sub-sample of 57 unique unhealthy food ads where food taste/flavor/smell was the key promotional appeal, rather than being cool/hip to enjoy, a focus on the product’s appearance/shape/color, or highlighting its nutrition or other value.

Another disquieting finding: Neither children nor other viewers were well warned of any problems, as the use of disclaimers in such advertising was low.

The general assumption is, if you use a disclaimer, you’re off the hook,” Lee says. “If used, or not, people don’t read them … it’s hard to say if they’re effective or not.”

Dr. Steve Thomsen, a leading females-and-eating-disorders researcher, says society is saturated with media messages that mix “an indulgent chocolate cake recipe and suggestions on how to get ready for bikini season.”

Lee hopes public policy makers will get the message that TV advertising harmfully impacts childhood obesity, and takes steps to solve the problem.