Associations between advertisement-supported media exposure and dietary quality among preschool-age children.

Foods of low nutritional quality are heavily marketed to children, and exposure to food ads shapes children's preferences and intake towards advertised foods. Whether food ad exposure independently relates to an overall lower diet quality among children remains unclear. We examined the association between ad-supported media use, a proxy for food ad exposure, and diet quality using the baseline data (2014-2015) from 535 3-5-year-olds in a community-based cohort study.

Exposure to Child-Directed TV Advertising and Preschoolers' Intake of Advertised Cereals.

Introduction: Child-directed TV advertising is believed to influence children's diets, yet prospective studies in naturalistic settings are absent. This study examined if child-directed TV advertisement exposure for ten brands of high-sugar breakfast cereals was associated with children's intake of those brands prospectively.

Methods: Observational study of 624 preschool-age children and their parents conducted in New Hampshire, 2014-2015.

Child-targeted TV advertising and preschoolers' consumption of high-sugar breakfast cereals.

Breakfast cereals represent the most highly advertised packaged food on child-targeted television, and most ads are for cereals high in sugar. This study examined whether children's TV exposure to child-targeted, high-sugar breakfast cereal (SBC) ads was associated with their consumption of those SBC brands. Parents of 3- to 5-year-old children were recruited from pediatric and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) clinics in Southern New Hampshire, USA, and completed a cross-sectional survey between April-December 2013.

A toy story: Association between young children's knowledge of fast food toy premiums and their fast food consumption.

Fast food restaurants spend millions of dollars annually on child-targeted marketing, a substantial portion of which is allocated to toy premiums for kids' meals. The objectives of this study were to describe fast food toy premiums, and examine whether young children's knowledge of fast food toy premiums was associated with their fast food consumption. Parents of 3- to 5-year old children were recruited from pediatric and WIC clinics in Southern New Hampshire, and completed a cross-sectional survey between April 2013-March 2014.

School food reduces household income disparities in adolescents' frequency of fruit and vegetable intake.

Objective: The aim of this study is to examine whether school food attenuates household income-related disparities in adolescents' frequency of fruit and vegetable intake (FVI).

Method: Telephone surveys were conducted between 2007 and 2008 with adolescent-parent dyads from Northern New England; participants were randomly assigned to be surveyed at different times throughout the year. The main analysis comprised 1542 adolescents who typically obtained breakfast/lunch at school at least once/week.

Two-method measurement for adolescent obesity epidemiology: reducing the bias in self-report of height and weight.

Background: Despite validation studies demonstrating substantial bias, epidemiologic studies typically use self-reported height and weight as primary measures of body mass index because of feasibility and resource limitations.

Purpose: To demonstrate a method for calculating accurate and precise estimates that use body mass index when objectively measuring height and weight in a full sample is not feasible.

Methods: As part of a longitudinal study of adolescent health, 1,840 adolescents (ages 12-18) self-reported their height and weight during telephone surveys.