High-sugar cereals are heavily promoted to children on TV. The adoption of poor eating habits including excess consumption of sugar can lead to obesity, a known risk factor for 13 cancers. Children’s eating habits develop during the preschool years, and children who are overweight by the age of five are likely to remain overweight into adolescence and adulthood. Unfortunately, many young children have diets of low quality and consume too few fruits and vegetables and too much sugar, salt and fat. A new study led by Jennifer Emond, PhD, member of the Cancer Control research program at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center and Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Data Science Geisel School of Medicine hits a notable target in the many diet influences that lead to obesity.

Emond’s study, “Exposure to Child-Directed TV Advertising and Preschoolers’ Intake of Advertised Cereals” recently published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. The novel study computed kids’ TV ad exposure based on the TV shows they watched on children’s network TV. Emond’s team purchased an advertising database and actually counted, by brand, the cereal ads that aired on the children’s TV network programs each child watched. Parents were asked about the shows their kids watched and what cereals their kids ate in the past week, every eight weeks, for one year. “We found that kids who were exposed to TV ads for high-sugar cereals aired in the programs they watched were more likely to subsequently eat the cereals they had seen advertised,” says Emond. Reducing the marketing of high-sugar foods to children may ultimately improve diet quality and reduce the risk of obesity and related chronic diseases among children at the population level.