Exposure to Food Advertising on Television, Food Choices and Childhood Obesity

To date, there has been insufficient research on the direct effects of food marketing on children's diet and diet-related health, particularly in non-experimental settings. In this paper we employ the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey - Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) and Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) data sets to estimate how various types of food advertising to children on television affect children's food consumption and body weight. We utilize rich advertising data from The Nielsen Company pertaining to soft drink, cereal, and fast food advertising as measured by Gross Rating Points (GRPs). These data are taken from 56 Designated Market Areas (DMAs), which cover 70.75 percent of the U.S. population, from 2002 to 2004. Taking the potential endogenous nature of food consumption into account, our study provides new estimates of the potential effect of food TV advertising on children's food choices and in turn body weight. We find evidence that soft drink TV advertising is related to increased consumption of soft drinks among elementary school children (Grade 5), that fast food TV advertising is related to increased consumption of fast food among eighth graders, and that cereal advertising has a negative effect on fruit and vegetable consumption for preschoolers. Mild effects of exposure to food TV advertising on body weight can be seen in preliminary structural models. We exploit information on parental height and weight in the ECLS-B in our analyses for preschoolers. Presenter Biography: Tatiana Andreyeva is Director of Economic Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. Her current research focuses on the determinants of access to healthy foods and the role of economic incentives in food choices and diet, including food prices/taxes, federal assistance and nutrition programs (particularly WIC and CACFP).