title: Healthy characters? An investigation of marketing practices in children's food advertising.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the nutritional quality of foods advertised with familiar children's characters and health-related messages.
  
  
  METHODS
  Children's programming aired on the most popular broadcast and cable channels during 2011 was sampled to form a composite weekday and weekend day. All food advertisements (ads) included in this programming were content analyzed.
  
  
  METHODS
  Five hundred seventy-seven food ads.
  
  
  METHODS
  Familiar characters promoting products were either trade or licensed characters. A product's nutritional quality was determined using the United States Department of Health and Human Services' categorizations, based on the frequency foods should be consumed. Health cues were present when a food was claimed to be healthy, physical activity was depicted, or the product was associated with fruit.
  
  
  METHODS
  Frequencies and chi square analyses were conducted; P < .05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Nearly three quarters (73%) of food ads targeting children use a familiar character. The majority of these ads (72%) promote foods of low nutritional quality, yet 53% employ a health-related message.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Familiar characters proliferate in food advertising to children, yet marketers do not adhere to recommendations that characters promote strictly healthy foods. Future research is needed to investigate effects and inform policy decisions in this realm.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication, University of Arizona, AZ. Electronic address: JSC1@email.arizona.edu.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Castonguay
authors.forename: Dale
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kunkel
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Duff
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising; D002359:Cartoons as Topic; D019649:Food Industry; D018857:Food Packaging; D006293:Health Promotion; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D013690:Television
keywords: advertising; children; food; marketing; television