By IANS,
Sydney : Junk food ads heavily saturate 20 of the most popular TV programmes for children, according to a study.
These ads for junk food that rely on competitions and give-aways are 18 times more common during children’s programmes than in popular adult programmes, Sydney University researchers found.
“Persuasive marketing techniques were mostly used to advertise unhealthy foods, with over three unhealthy food advertisements every hour using premium offers during the most popular programmes with children,” said Lesley King, one of the researchers.
“Advertisements for chocolate, confectionery, fast food restaurant meals and high sugar/low fibre breakfast cereals contributed to the greatest proportion of all premium offers,” she added.
The study, the first to look at the use of persuasive TV food marketing techniques to children, also found promotional characters such as cartoon characters and celebrities were used twice as often in food ads during popular children’s programmes.
King said that although persuasive marketing techniques are clearly being used to catch children’s attention, a new draft, Children’s Television Standards, released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority would fail to effectively reduce children’s exposure to these marketing tactics.
“The draft standards only restrict the use of cartoon characters and celebrities during C or P classified programmes, yet these are not the programmes that are watched by the largest numbers of children,” she said.
“Importantly, most of the programmes on commercial channels that are popular with children will not be covered under the draft standards,” she added.
The study was published online in the international journal, Health Promotion International.