Children's food preferences: Effects of weight status, food type, branding and television food advertisements (commercials)

Objective. To investigate the effects of weight status, food type and exposure to food and non-food advertisements on children's preference for branded and non-branded foods. Design A within-subjects, counterbalanced design with control (toy advertisement) and experimental (food advertisement) conditions. Subjects. A total of 37 school students (age: 11-13 years; weight status: 24 lean, 10 overweight, 3 obese). Measurements. Advertisement recall list, two food preference measures; the Leeds Food Preference Measure (LFPM), the Adapted Food Preference Measure (AFPM) and a food choice measure; the Leeds Forced-choice Test (LFCT). Results. Normal weight children selected more branded and non-branded food items after exposure to food advertisements than in the control (toy advertisement) condition. Obese and over-weight children showed a greater preference for branded foods than normal weight children per se, and also in this group only, there was a significant correlation between food advertisement recall and the total number of food items chosen in the experimental (food advertisement) condition. Conclusion. Exposure to food advertisements increased the preference for branded food items in the normal weight children. This suggests that television food advertisement exposure can produce the same 'obesigenic' food preference response found in overweight and obese children in their normal weight counterparts.