TV Diet: Food choices endorsed on American television

Purpose Statement: The ubiquity of television in American culture makes it a critical factor of the obesogenic environment. The purpose of this study was to asses the dietary implications of food choices endorsed on TV by comparing the nutritional quality of advertised foods to established nutritional guidelines.

Methods: Food advertisements were observed during 96 hours of broadcast over 28 consecutive days, yielding 831 food item endorsements. The nutrient content and food group servings for these food items were calculated using NutritionistPro software. The food group servings of observed food items were compared to the recommended daily servings (RDS) of the Food Guide Pyramid using a one-sample t-test. Nutrient content of observed food items were compared to the Daily Values using a one-sample t-test.

Results: A diet consisting of TV-endorsed foods would provide 2,560% of the RDS for sugar and 2,080% of the RDS for fat, with only 40% of the RDS for vegetables, 32% of the RDS for dairy, and 27% of the RDS for fruits. This diet would also significantly oversupplied protein, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium, while significantly undersupplying carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins A, E, B5 and D, iron, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, copper, and potassium.

Conclusions: The “TV Diet” appears to wildly oversupply sugar and fat, while grossly undersupplying dairy, fruits, vegetables, and 12 essential nutrients, which could easily lead to chronic nutrient deficiency. Overall, the TV Diet constitutes a pervasive source of nutritional misinformation that contradicts nutritional guidelines, encourages overweight and malnutrition, and promotes obesity-related illness.