Harrison Kristen
Department of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Health Commun. 2005;17(2):117-32. doi: 10.1207/s15327027hc1702_1.
The family diet is influenced by children's attitudes toward food, which in turn are influenced by television. In a panel study involving 134 children in 1st to 3rd grade, television viewing, nutritional knowledge, and nutritional reasoning were measured 6 weeks apart. Television viewing predicted subsequent decrements in nutritional knowledge and reasoning, but these findings were significant only for foods that tend to be heavily marketed as weight-loss aids. Television's framing of diet foods may confuse children by equating weight-loss benefits with nutritional benefits.
