A comparison between healthy and non-healthy food.
AbstractThis research aims to investigate the effects of food advergaming on children's eating habits. A total of 231 elementary school-age children were randomly assigned to one of the following two conditions: (i) play the healthy advergame; (ii) play the less healthy advergame. A pos-treatment pictured questionnaire was used to assess their behavior in terms of immediate food choice, food liking, and nutritional knowledge. Results showed that children tend to choose a snack accordingly to what was being advertised in the game.In terms of food liking, children who played the less healthy version of the game reported a higher preference for some of the less healthy options. Regarding nutritional knowledge no differences were registered which leads us to conclude that they already have a solid understanding of what are "good" and "bad" foods for their health. These findings have important legal, educational, management and social marketing contributions.Key Words Advergames; children; eating behaviors; nutritional knowledge.
Introduction
"Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century"World Health Organization 1 Obesity is now considered the fifth leading global risk for mortality and has reached an epidemic status. 43 million children under five years-old are considered overweight (WHO, 2010). In Europe, Lobstein et al. (2004) showed that there is a higher prevalence for overweight children in Southern Europe, especially in Mediterranean region (Exhibit B1). This is of great concern to all of us, especially to food industry which has largely contributed to this issue due to energy-dense food availability and strong communication campaigns directed to children (Hastings et al., 2006 Authors have proven that food marketed to children is predominantly high-sugared and fat-based, inconsistent with dietary recommendations (Story and French, 2004). The same trend characterizes the content of food marketing on popular children websites, where the most marketed food products are candy, cereal, quick serve restaurant meals and snacks (Alvy and Calvert, 2008). Food industry keeps spending millions on less healthy food products advertisement (Exhibit B2). As a result, children's food decisions are often made in high-calorie or nutrient-poor environments.These health-related behaviors, largely shaped by media, are developed during early childhood, influencing children's quality of life (Williams et al., 2005) and are likely to persist in adulthood (McGinnis et al., 2006).The purpose of this paper is to analyze how advergames, interactive product-themed digital games, influence their eating behavior.
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