Kids seeing more snack ads, despite food industry pledges

Despite pledges from food makers, young children are seeing more advertisements for junk food on TV than they did in past years.

A team at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found from 2010 to 2014, snack food ads targeted to kids grew 10 percent.

Those aimed at teenagers rose 29 percent.

And minority kids saw even more than white children, researchers say.

Most products in the ads didn't meet the USDA Smart Snack nutritional standards.

Those standards were set to identify foods and beverages with limits on calories, sodium, total fat, trans fat and total sugar which can be sold in schools outside the school meal program.

"Unfortunately, a majority of ads were for things like chips and cookies, and pop-tarts, and products that aren't healthy for kids," says Jennifer Harris, Ph.D., of the Rudd Center.

And more ads have shifted to family-oriented cable channels, which the food industry doesn't consider as children's programs.

In 2006, the Council of Better Business Bureaus introduced the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a voluntary self-regulatory program.

Companies taking part pledged only to advertise only healthy dietary choices in child-oriented media.