Food Messages on African American Television Shows

African American households watch more television than the average American household—75 hours per week versus 52 hours per week—and are more likely to watch shows with predominantly African American characters.1 African Americans also have a higher prevalence of obesity than the general American population (27% vs 19%).2 Television watching has been previously linked to the development of obesity.3–6 Televised images of products such as alcohol7 and tobacco8 have increased the use of these items, despite their adverse health effects. Despite advertisers’ and network executives’ advance knowledge of television content, no public studies have examined the healthrelated content of television aimed at specific racial/ethnic segments of the population. Therefore, we compared portrayals of food during popular African American television shows with those during general programming.