Cheap, legal and everywhere: High-sugar cereals are marketed to kids

As a long-time health specialist and father of a premature infant, I have experienced the issue of educating my son as to the benefits of avoiding many of the highly processed foods which are so prevalent in American society.

I also worked on countering the plethora of advertising the “supposed” benefits of consuming these types of “foods.” I can say the results have been very positive.

The numbers of overweight and obese children continue to rise across the country. The latest National Survey of Children’s Health data noted that 17.0% of youth aged 6 to 17 had obesity (almost one in five).

Recent reports note the increasing inability of finding sufficient numbers of young men to join the armed forces with many unable to meet weight and physical fitness requirements. Past research notes a link with young children being overweight continuing on in life.

Some recent research

One of the top sources of added sugar in children’s diets is in their breakfast cereal. A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that advertising drives sales of high-sugar cereals when it’s aimed directly at kids under 12 — but not when it targets adults.

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“Cereal companies do have healthy products, but the high-sugar ones are the ones that they actually advertise to kids,” says Jennifer Harris, a senior research adviser at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut.

In the study noted above Harris and her colleagues looked at all cereals purchased by 77,000 U.S. households over a nine-year period, between 2008 and 2017. They also looked at Nielsen ratings data, which closely monitored all the ads that people in a household saw — both children and adults.

What they found was a strong relationship between how much advertising was targeted to kids and how much sugary cereal that households with children bought. In fact, just nine advertised cereals dominated purchases by these households, and all of them were high in sugar: They had between 9 and 12 grams of sugar — about a tablespoon — per serving.

Brands including Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios and Froot Loops made up 41% of total household cereal purchases. About one-third of households with kids bought at least one of the nine brands in a given month.

By contrast, Harris says, there was no link to increased purchases when ads targeted adults.

“This study shows that it’s really important for these companies with high-sugar cereals to actually reach kids — that parents probably wouldn’t buy them if their kids weren’t asking them for them,” Harris says.

Lindsey Smith Taillie, a food policy researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says these voluntary efforts aren’t making a difference. “For a long time, we’ve known that junk food marketing to kids was very prevalent in the United States, and it continues to be prevalent despite companies pledging to do better,” she says.

The study is the first to directly link food advertising exposure by children versus adults with subsequent purchases of these foods. Taillie, who was not involved in the research, says the findings offer novel evidence of how food marketing influences what children ask their parents to buy — a concept known as “pester power.”

Counter viewpoint by the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative

Public health officials have long been concerned about the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids.

As a response nearly two decades ago, the food industry launched the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), a voluntary effort to police itself.

The 21 participating food companies pledged to cut back on marketing unhealthy foods to children under 12 — later revised to under 13.

In a written statement to National Public Radio about their broadcast, Daniel Range, vice president of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, defended the industry’s efforts. He notes that the past study looked only at ads through 2017. He points to a 2024 study showing children’s exposure to cereal ads on TV programming aimed at kids has dropped dramatically.

Harris was one of the authors of that 2024 study. She says most of that drop in advertising to kids is due to a decline in TV viewing.

Advertisements, like kids’ eyeballs, are moving online, where hyperpersonalization can make it even harder to know what marketing children are being exposed to, Taillie notes.

Thanks to NPR for much of the content provided.

Additional Resources

Check out the UConn Center for Food Policy and Health for some in-depth discussions on food marketing including targeted marketing, fast food and sugary drinks and other important areas at:Food Marketing | UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health

Read the following piece titled, “Kid YouTube stars make sugary junk food look good — to millions of young viewers” at: Soda, candy and other junk food stars in kid-oriented YouTube videos : Shots – Health News: NPR

Mark A. Mahoney, Ph.D. has been a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist for over 35 years and completed graduate studies in Nutrition & Public Health at Columbia University. He can be reached at [email protected].