Yoli Truth: Junk food gets air time on kids’ channels

October 29, 2009

Disclaimer: Yoli products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

As parents we have to keep a close eye on the messages that our kids are getting. Unfortunately, advertisers are taking advantage of our children when watching TV…

There are good kids programming out there that don’t run these types of commercials and some that are commercial free.

Junk food gets air time on kids’ channels

Nearly all the food advertised on leading television channels aimed at toddlers to tweens is unhealthy, newly released research shows.

Brian Cook, a research consultant at Toronto Public Health, analyzed advertisements shown on Teletoon and YTV over four days in January during children’s peak viewing times geared to kids ages two to 11. Yoli Can Make A Difference For Kids

The preliminary results, released on Wednesday at a conference about public health nutrition reform hosted by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, show that food ads made up the single largest category, at 37 percent. And an overwhelming number of them – 95 percent – were for unhealthy foods.

Breakfast cereals with high sugar and low fibre content represented the single largest percentage of unhealthy food ads, representing 28 per cent.

The remaining three categories each represented 24 percent of the ads: fast food restaurants and meals, snack foods, and high-fat, sugary or salty spreads, soups or pastas.

Milk and juice made up the bulk of the five percent of ads for healthy foods.

The sample was based on 41 hours of programming, of which 16 hours had channel promotions in place of product advertising.

The data was collected after Canada’s leading food and beverage companies launched, in April 2007, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a voluntary code to promote healthier dietary choices and lifestyles to children under the age of 12.

By February, 11 of the 16 companies had already implemented their commitments; the remaining companies have agreed to have their commitments fully implemented by the end of 2008.

Among the core principles, they have committed to devoting at least 50 per cent of their ads to promote products that represent healthy dietary choices or include healthy lifestyle.

Cook said there are too many gaps in the industry initiative to make it effective.

“The self-regulatory route just doesn’t work,” he said in an interview, pointing to a recent analysis conducted by Dr. David McKeon, medical officer of health at Toronto Public Health.

Cereals defined as “healthier dietary choices” for children include Froot Loops, Reese’s Puffs, Corn Pops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Alpha Bits and Kool-Aid Singles.

Janet Feasby is vice-president of standards at Advertising Standards Canada, a national advertising industry self-regulatory body overseeing the initiative. She said the current approach is sound because products that make the cut for a healthier dietary choice must meet established scientific and government standards.

They include foods that meet the standards for participating in the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s Health Check program and foods that meet criteria for nutrient content claims in Canada’s Food Guide, namely those with “free or “low” claims for calories as well as fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar and salt.

“This is an industry initiative that they’ve taken on their own to be responsible and to make a difference in the childhood obesity issue,” said Feasby.

The preliminary findings are part of a broader global project coordinated by Australian researchers looking at TV food ads to children in 12 countries.