Beyond-brand effect of television food advertisements on food choice in children: the effects of weight status

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effect of television food advertising on children's food intake, specifically whether childhood obesity is related to a greater susceptibility to food promotion. Design: The study was a within-subject, counterbalanced design. The children were tested on two occasions separated by two weeks. One condition involved the children viewing food advertisements followed by a cartoon, in the other condition the children viewed non-food adverts followed by the same cartoon. Following the cartoon, their food intake and choice was assessed in a standard paradigm. Setting: The study was conducted in Liverpool, UK. Subjects: Fifty-nine children (32 male, 27 female) aged 9-11 years were recruited from a UK school to participate in the study. Thirty-three children were normalweight (NW), 15 overweight (OW) and 11 obese (OB). Results: Exposure to food adverts produced substantial and significant increases in energy intake in all children (P , 0Á001). The increase in intake was largest in the obese children (P 5 0Á04). All children increased their consumption of high-fat and/ or sweet energy-dense snacks in response to the adverts (P , 0Á001). In the food advert condition, total intake and the intake of these specific snack items correlated with the children's modified age-and gender-specific body mass index score. Conclusions: These data suggest that obese and overweight children are indeed more responsive to food promotion, which specifically stimulates the intake of energy-dense snacks.

Free will and the obesity epidemic

“…Although a relationship between time spent watching television and eating behaviour had been suspected for many decades (112) , data accumulated more recently have experimentally confirmed that watching food commercials actually increases snack intake (113)(114)(115) . Figure 12 shows results of a study by Halford et al (116) , in which normal-weight, overweight and obese children watched cartoons containing commercials advertising either toys or snack foods. After watching the 116) cartoons the children were provided with an assortment of snacks to eat.…”

Sedentary behaviors, physical activity behaviors, and body fat in 6-year-old children: the Generation R Study

“…Alternatively, for the purpose of this study, we defined family lifestyle factors as potential confounders in the associations between each of the sedentary behaviors and physical activity behaviors and the three outcomes. However, previous studies have suggested that unhealthy dietary behaviors (i.e., increased consumption of snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages during and following screen time) may mediate part of the effects of television viewing on childhood obesity [35-37]. Therefore, if we assume that children’s consumption of snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages are part of the causal pathway linking television viewing with children’s body fatness, television viewing may also be considered a modifiable risk factor of children’s percent fat mass.…”

A new academic year

“…In order to stabilise future healthy developments in the European population and a true mobility of public health nutrition workers, we have seen the need to ensure an efficient and comparable training in public health nutrition, ensuring a future workforce with the ability to meet demands from the market as well as from academia. The role of this journal in that regard becomes crucial and we need to publish and discuss papers on workforce development (3)(4)(5) as well as papers on research priorities and on public policy developments, and promote a healthy debate and lobbying. A lot of work has previously gone into trying to establish consensus in this area over Europe, creating structures for student and teacher exchange and building teaching consortia (6,7) .…”

“…Xu et al (2) present results from a crosssectional study among high-school students in China that supports this relationship. Halford et al (3) provide evidence from a study in the UK that obese and overweight children are more responsive to food promotion, stimulating the intake of energy-dense snacks. The evidence in support of the 'Sydney Principles' is clearly mounting.…”