Fun Gets Spooned Out With the Ads on Breakfast Cereal Web Sites Aimed at Kids; Berkeley Media Studies Group Studies How Cereal Is Pushed to Kids Online.

Byline: Public Health Institute

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- One way cereal companies market their most sugary, high-salt and low-fiber fare to children is by putting fun "advergames" on their Web sites, luring legions of unsuspecting children in to sway their tastes, according to findings of the Berkeley Media Studies Group that are included in a cereal marketing study by the Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

The study, "Evaluating Nutrition Quality and Marketing of Children's Cereals," finds that cereal companies most aggressively market the least healthy cereals to children as young as two years old. The first analysis of cereal marketing, the study details that cereals targeted directly to kids contain 85 percent more sugar, 65 percent less fiber and 60 percent more sodium than those promoted to adult consumers.

BMSG reviewed the cereal makers' Web sites, studying their use of interactive content such as advergames, entire games that are advertisements for a cereal; the way they promote their products with licensed characters; the claims they make for the cereals; and their depiction of cereals as magical or special.

You can read a copy of the report at http://www.cerealfacts.org .

BMSG is a project of the Public Health Institute.

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CONTACT: Cinderella Lee, Public Health Institute Communications, (000)-000-0000

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