title: Children's Food and Beverage Promotion on Television to Parents.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nutritionally poor foods are heavily advertised to children on television. Whether those same products are also advertised to parents on television has not been systematically examined.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study is a content analysis of advertisements for children's packaged foods and beverages aired over US network, cable, and syndicated television for 1 year (2012 to 2013). The target audience of each advertisement was defined as children or parents based on advertisement content, where parent-directed advertisements included emotional appeals related to family bonding and love. Advertisement characteristics and patterns of airtime were compared across target audience, and the proportion of total airtime devoted to advertisements targeting parents was computed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifty-one children's food or beverage products were advertised over the study year, 25 (49%) of which were advertised directly to parents. Parent-directed advertisements more often featured nutrition and health messaging and an active lifestyle than child-directed advertisements, whereas child-directed advertisements more frequently highlighted fun and product taste. Over all products, 42.4% of total airtime was devoted to advertisements that targeted parents. The products with the most amount of airtime over the study year were ready-to-eat cereals, sugar-sweetened beverages, and children's yogurt, and the proportion of total advertisement airtime for those products devoted to parents was 24.4%, 72.8%, and 25.8%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Television advertisements for children's packaged foods and beverages frequently targeted parents with emotional appeals and messaging related to nutrition and health. Findings are of concern if exposure to such advertisements among parents may shape their beliefs about the appropriateness of nutritionally questionable children's foods and beverages.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Control Research Program, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and Departments of Epidemiology and jennifer.a.emond@dartmouth.edu.
authors.forename: Jennifer A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Emond
authors.affiliation: Department of General Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
authors.forename: Marietta E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Departments of Epidemiology and.
authors.forename: Suman J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Mathur
authors.affiliation: Cancer Control Research Program, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and Community and Family Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire; Department of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, New Hampshire;
authors.forename: James D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Sargent
authors.affiliation: Cancer Control Research Program, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and Departments of Epidemiology and.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gilbert-Diamond
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001628:Beverages / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005502:Food / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D013690:Television / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States