Whats on Malaysian television?
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. tilly_karu@yahoo.co.uk The Malaysian government recently introduced a ban on fast food advertisements targeting children on television. This study reports on data covering 6 months of television food advertising targeting children. Six out of seven of the Nation’s commercial television networks participated (response rate = 85.7%). Based on reported timings of children’s programmes, prime time significantly differed ( p <0.05) between weekdays (mean = 1.89 +/- 0.18 hr) and weekends (mean = 4.61 +/- 0.33 hr). The increased trend during weekends, school vacation and Ramadhan was evident. Over the six-month period, the mean number of food advertisements appearing per month varied greatly between television stations (C = 1104; D = 643; F = 407; B = 327; A = 59; E = 47). Food advertising also increased the most in September (n = 3158), followed by July (n = 2770
