Ads Aimed at Kids Faulted: A Study Finds Young TV Viewers Are Bombarded By Commercials for Candy and

Mar 29, 05:08 AM

Current Headlines: By Karen Uhlenhuth, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Mar. 29--If SpongeBob SquarePants, the undersea cartoon character, would do some high-profile endorsements of broccoli, Margo Wootan would be much happier with food advertising on television.

Alas, when SpongeBob and his fellow animated foodies talk through the tube to children about eating, they almost invariably favor sugar, fat and calories.

That's among the findings of a study of child-oriented televised food advertisements that was made public Wednesday. Concerned about the number of overweight children in the United States, the Kaiser Family Foundation funded what it says is the largest and most-detailed analysis of such commercials.

The commercials have been a staple of television for years. But their sheer daily volume, as documented by the study, alarms many experts. Food-industry leaders say changes are under way, but in Washington, D.C., politicians are taking notice and rumblings are being heard of reinstituting controls.

Wootan is the nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocate for nutrition, health and food safety. Besides the number of commercials on television, she decries what she sees as insincerity in the hand-wringing by government over products with little nutritional value.

"We hear a lot of rhetoric about obesity from Congress and the administration and food companies, but it's not translating into policy changes that support parents and protect kids," she said.

Among the study's major findings: Depending on their age, children from 2 through 17 view on average 12 to 21 food advertisements a day. Children 8 to 12, a favorite target of marketers, saw the most food commercials -- an average of 21 a day. Of the 8,854 commercials that the researchers viewed, they did not see one for a fruit or vegetable. But 34 percent were for candy and snacks, 28 percent for cereals -- most highly sweetened -- and 10 percent for fast foods.

Wootan, the mother of a 9-year-old, said it is virtually impossible for parents to counter such daily volume.

"If you tried to talk to your child about healthy eating 10 or 20 times a day, you would be considered the biggest nag of all time," she said. The study's figures "show how much parents are undermined by the companies marketing to their children. Getting children to eat more healthfully would be easier if parents didn't have to contend with $12 billion in junk-food advertising every year."

Some companies say they have made changes, establishing nutrition standards for advertisers, for example, or reaching out to fruit and vegetable growers.

There's been "a gradual process of trying to respond to concerns that have been expressed," said C. Lee Peeler, speaking for the children's food and beverage advertising industry.

The discovery that "tweens" see the most food commercials is significant for a couple of reasons, said Vicky Rideout, a vice president at Kaiser and the study's director.

"This is an age when they start having a little allowance money, and they're away from mom and dad a little more and have a chance to make their own food choices," she said.

Rideout said Kaiser conducted the study because of a lack of facts to inform debate in Washington on whether, or how, to regulate television food commercials. The Federal Trade Commission had regulated children's television until Congress eviscerated its powers in 1980.

Of late, there has been bipartisan talk on Capitol Hill. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, has introduced a bill to restore much of that power to the FTC. Another outspoken proponent of more controls on such television advertising is Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. He spoke at the Kaiser Foundation's event Wednesday.

Several members of Congress "are watching to see what the food industry does," Rideout said. "If they are not satisfied with the change that comes about, they will look at mandating change in the foods advertised to kids."

Feeling the heat, 10 major food processors in November announced an initiative to rein themselves in. Each promised that at least half of its television advertisements aimed mostly at children younger than 12 would promote healthier products or lifestyles. The companies' detailed plans should be made public by the fall, Peeler said.

Wootan is skeptical.

"We could end up with a lot of junk-food ads that include a nutrition or exercise message," she said.

Although they aren't advertising on television, several growers of fruits and vegetables have made licensing agreements with Nickelodeon to put its characters, such as Dora the Explorer, on fruits and vegetables.

Grimmway Farms of Bakersfield, Calif., for two years has put images of Nickelodeon characters on bags of baby carrots, according to Phil Gruszka, the company's vice president of marketing.

"The produce industry clearly is moving forward in a marketing perspective," he said.

In market research, mothers said they'd be interested in any marketing gimmicks that would help them get their children to eat vegetables. The list of fruits and vegetables with licensed characters on the packaging will "expand significantly this year," Gruszka said.

But the cost of advertising on television, he said, is way beyond the budgets of many produce growers.

Bottom line: Don't look for SpongeBob on your television set praising the virtues of broccoli any time soon.

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To reach Karen Uhlenhuth, call (816) 234-7813 or send e-mail to kuhlenhuth@kcstar.com.

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