Commercial Television Exposure, Fast Food Toy Collecting, and Family Visits to Fast Food Restaurants among Families Living in Rural Communities

ObjectiveTo assess the associations between children's exposure to television (TV) networks that aired child-directed advertisements for children's fast food meals with the collection of fast food meal toy premiums and frequency of family visits to those restaurants.Study designOne hundred parents of children 3-7 years old were recruited from a rural pediatrics clinic during 2011; families receiving Medicaid were oversampled. Parents reported the child's TV viewing habits and family visit frequency to the fast food restaurants participating in child-directed TV marketing at the time, and their child's requests for visits to and the collecting of toy premiums from those restaurants. Logistic regression models assessed adjusted associations between a child's TV viewing with more frequent restaurant visits (≥monthly in this population). Structural equation modeling assessed if child requests or toy collecting mediated that association.ResultsThirty-seven percent of parents reported ≥monthly visits to the select fast food restaurants. Among children, 54% requested visits to and 29% collected toys from those restaurants. Greater child commercial TV viewing was significantly associated with more frequent family visits to those fast food restaurants (aOR 2.84 for each 1-unit increase in the child's commercial TV viewing scale, P < .001); toy collecting partially mediated that positive association.ConclusionsHigher exposure among children to commercial TV networks that aired child-directed ads for children's fast food meals was associated with more frequent family visits to those fast food restaurants. Child desire for toy premiums may be a mediating factor.