New research suggests that sport TV expose children to thousands of alcohol advertisements, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Researchers at Monash University in Australia found that 87 percent of all alcohol advertisements during the daytime were in sport TV when hundreds of thousands of children were watching. This finding questions the effectiveness of advertising regulations designed to protect children.
"Watching sport with your kids is great family entertainment, but if culture is what you see around you, then it's pretty clear from these results that what children see when they watch sport is a drinking culture," Dr. Sherilene Carr, co-author of the study, said in a statement.
International research shows that greater exposure to alcohol advertising in children and adolescents is associated with earlier alcohol initiation and more problematic drinking in later life.
For the study, researchers examined the extent of alcohol advertising in sport vs. non-sport TV, and match times when alcohol advertising was present on TV with the times when children and young adults where known to be watching.
They found that there were 6,049 alcohol adverts on free-to-air sport TV in 2012, with significantly more alcohol adverts per hour in sport than non-sport TV. Most of the alcohol advertising coincided with children and adolescent's peak viewing times.
"Taking into account the amount of programming time for sport vs. non-sport TV there's four alcohol adverts in sport for everyone in non-sport TV. Australian children love watching sport but unfortunately they are going to have to watch a lot of alcohol ads as well," said Kerry O'Brien, who led the study.
Several European nations already have bans on alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sport and Russia implemented a ban in 2013 to fix its problematic drinking culture. Stronger restrictions on alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sport are also being considered in Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, and the UK.
The results of the study show that children's exposure to alcohol advertising could be halved if the clause in regulations allowing alcohol advertising in sport during the daytime was removed, and alcohol adverting was not allowed before 9.30 p.m.
The findings are detailed in the journal PLOS One.
