Television and Children's Conceptions of Nutrition: Unhealthy Messages

Abstract

This cultivation analysis examined the relation between television viewing and conceptions relating to health and nutrition in a sample of 200 fourth- and fifth-grade students. Generally and in most demographic subgroups, there was a strong positive relation between television viewing and having bad eating habits that withstood simultaneous controls for sex, reading level, race, parent occupation, and parents' education level. Television viewing was also related, again under conditions of simultaneous controls, to having unhealthy conceptions about food and incorrect knowledge about principles of nutrition.