What is television (TV) trying to make children swallow? A content analysis of nutrition-related incidents (NRI) in TV programs viewed heavily by children aged 2–11 years

Abstract

Watching TV has become our single most time-consuming leisure activity. On average, children spend 17 to 26 hours watching TV each week. The potential effects of this powerful, persuasive teacher on children's nutrition behaviors is a subject of great concern. However, before these effects can be studied, we need first to have a current description of what really happens on the screen. Thus, the objective of this study was to examine TV programs viewed heavily by children aged 2 to 11 (based on Nielsen ratings) and provide a detailed description of the NRIs therein. (NRIs are scenes involving food or body image.) A total of 104 hoûrs (26 hours from each of 4 quarters in a year) of prime-time and Saturday morning network TV programs were videotaped. All NRIs were content analyzed using the instrument developed for this study. Content analysis served as the study methodology because it allows for objective, systematic, and quantitative descriptions of program content and permits the drawing of replicable, valid inferences from data to their context. The instrument included two parts: basic information about the program (e.g., title, program type) and a description of the content dimensions (e.g., characters involved, scene location, eating environment) of all NRIs. It was pilot tested with 60 hours of TV to ensure that it had an appropriate series of content dimensions and items. Reliability was established by double coding a subsample of NRIs by an independent observer. Data analysis indicated that NRIs occurred, on average, 6 times per hour. Characters involved in NRIs tended to be primarily white young adult males who have an average body type and are successful, intelligent, and healthy. TV characters ate mainly to socialize or cope with emotions, fewer than 1% ate because of hunger. In nearly half the NRIs, food was merely a prop—it just gave characters something to do. Eating was portrayed as consequence free: that is, 92% of the characters were slender yet they ate calorie-laden foods often. A food pyramid constructed based on the frequency foods appeared in NRIs would be almost the exact inverse of the USDA pyramid. The findings reveal that messages counter to good nutrition pervade daily TV fare. Although the impact of exposure to these messages is not yet known, evidence from other fields suggests that observing the behavior of others, especially if they are respected and the behavior is pleasurable, does strongly influence behavior. Even while we are exploring the effect of TV on nutrition behaviors, nutrition experts should develop a rapport with TV writers because, in nearly all the NRIs, a “good” nutrition message would be just as easy to incorporate and as meaningful to story lines as the negative nutrition messages typically used.