Advertisements for children's entertainment products in a popular parenting magazine: sedentary or active?

The purpose of this study was to describe advertisements of children’s entertainment products in a popular magazine, Parents, and to determine if they illustrated behavior that was physically active or sedentary.
The sample was comprised of Parents magazines (January 2010 to December 2015). Coding involved determining if the advertisement was promoting sedentary or active behavior.
Nearly all of the 169 advertisements in the sample (n = 166; 97.6%) were for products that depicted sedentary behavior. The most common types of entertainment products advertised were DVDs (n = 72), plastic stacking products (n = 18), books (n=14), and electronic devices (n = 13). The most popular theme that appeared in the advertisements was the entertainment product would enhance intelligence (n = 85; 50.3%, 95% CI: 0.43-0.58). The overwhelming majority (n = 136; 80.5%. 95% CI: 0.76-0.87) of the advertisements involved the presence of a character.
This type of advertising does not contribute to the nation’s goals of increasing physical activity among youth.