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Television advertising exposure and children’s nutritional awareness

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Abstract

The nutritional implications of children’s advertising has bean an issue of interest for nearly two decades. This study examines the relationship between the amount of a child’s exposure to television commercials and a child’s nutritional awareness. Nutritional awareness is measured by tests for nutritional knowledge and level of understanding of nutritional phraseology. The results indicate that exposure to television advertising during times characterized by a high proportion of child-oriented commercials is associated with lower scores on nutritional knowledge and understanding of nutritional phraseology. This relationship was not found for times characterized by a mixture of child- and nonchild-oriented advertising. Exposure to nonchild-oriented commercials was found to correlate with higher nutritional knowledge scores. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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Wiman, A.R., Newman, L.M. Television advertising exposure and children’s nutritional awareness. JAMS 17, 179–188 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02723376

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