Via the airwaves and the Internet, more and more American children are being exposed to junk food commercials.

According to a study published by the American Journal of Public Health in November, many of the most popular websites for children carried unhealthy food ads. Correspondingly, the nonprofit Children Now released a report Dec. 14 showing the ubiquity of junk foods alongside many children’s television shows.

In the former, researcher Dr. Lori Dorfman found that advertisements for candies, sodas, fast food, and sugary cereals dominated most children’s websites. From July to August 2007, Dorfman and peers traced the most junk food ads to no less than 28 sites.

These sites advertised 49 products declared by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) as “foods to avoid.” Merely five ads in these sites promoted products favored by the said agency, e.g. milk and fruit juice.

As for the Children Now report, researcher Dale Kunkel also had ruinous statistics.

His report, which was financed by the California Endowment, tracked 139 broadcast and cable TV shows for children between February and April 2009. He eventually found that around 68.5% of the 534 ads that ran with the shows pitched sugary cereals, fast food and sweet snacks—foods branded as “whoa” by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Whoa” refers to commodities that should only be consumed on occasion. “Go” refers to the opposite, yet Kunkel’s report showed that less than a percent advertised them. Furthermore, 31% of the ads belonged to “slow” foods, or those that should be eaten several times weekly.

Kunkel’s report comes a day before the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met to propose new standards for the marketing of children’s food. The agencies generally pushed for restrictions of ads for products rich in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat. Their proposals are due to be delivered to Congress in 2010, following a period for public comment.