Abstract

Background: Childhood obesity has been positively related to exposure to food advertising (PA) on Television (TV) broadcast. Objective: To describe the PA TV channels broadcast on National Association of Television (ANATEL) of Chile, between 8:00 and 22:00 h, during November 2010. Methods: Descriptive non-experimental cross-sectional study conducted on a mixed sample. PA broadcasted on Chilean TV channels associated with ANATEL, between 8:00 and 22:00 h, on two randomly selected weekdays, Saturday and Sunday between 7 and 28 November, 2010. The following information was collected: frequency, duration, content of critical nutrients (total and saturated fat, simple carbohydrates and sodium) based on the labeling of the products. TV spots were classified into food groups according to the “Traffic Light nutrition” as Healthy (S), Moderately Healthy (MS), Unhealthy (NS) and PA with no nutrient information declared on their labeling. Data were collected by structured observation with three different observers, using previously designed instruments. Results: Some 392 h of television programming were analyzed. During the study period 17% was advertising, 24% of this was PA. These PA were classified as follows: 21% S, 10% MS and 66% NS and found 3% of advertised products had no nutrition labeling. Conclusions: PA in Chilean TV is high. NS is predominantly high in critical nutrients, which may contribute to overweight and obesity in children who are mostly exposed to these ads..