Introduction: Reducing children’s exposure to advertisements promoting unhealthy foods and beverages has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a key strategy to improve children’s diets and reduce childhood obesity. This study examines changes from 2013-2022 in 2-5- and 6-11-year-old children’s exposure to food-related advertising on television, including for products high in nutrients to limit (NTL: saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, and sodium), following changes in the voluntary industry self-regulatory Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) in 2014 and 2020.

Methods: Ratings data on advertising exposure were obtained. Food and beverage products advertised were assessed for their nutritional content. Outcomes included advertisements per year seen and percent of advertisements high in NTL, on all programming and children’s programming (≥35% child audience share).

Results: From 2013-2022, total advertisements seen declined by 78-79% but remained high at 1035-1046 advertisements/year for 2-5- and 6–11-year-olds. Advertisements seen on children’s programming fell by 95-97%, from 1703-1745 to 52-84/year. Percentage of advertisements high in NTL fell from 80-82% to 68-69% on all programming and from 90-94% to 61-64% on children’s programming; 51-52% of CFBAI-member advertisements on children’s programming remained high in NTL. Black children saw 58-72% more food-related advertisements than White children; however, they saw a similar percentage of advertisements that were high in NTL.

Discussion: Exposure to food-related television advertisements on children’s programming has fallen substantially. However, most advertisements seen are for unhealthy products and exposure from all programming remains significant, suggesting the need for government regulations based on time of day.