La publicidad televisiva dirigida a menores en España: seguimiento del código PAOS

Abstract

En un contexto de preocupación por la fuerte prevalencia de la obesidad entre los niños españoles, el debate sobre la publicidad televisiva de alimentos para niños alcanza gran importancia. Aunque existen otros factores que influyen sobre la obesidad infantil, hay evidencias de que los mensajes publicitarios tienen un gran impacto sobre los hábitos alimenticios de los niños. Mediante un análisis de contenido, el objetivo de esta investigación es analizar y evaluar la eficacia del Código PAOS en 2018 como instrumento para mejorar la calidad publicitaria y promover hábitos de alimentación y modos de vida saludables. De este estudio se concluye: la elevada exposición de los niños menores de doce años a la publicidad de alimentos y bebidas, especialmente en los canales infantiles; una tendencia creciente en la presencia de publicidad insana en la franja de protección reforzada con respecto a 2012; que los anuncios de alimentos y bebidas apoyan su argumento de venta más en el incentivo que en el alimento; y, como conclusión general, que ha mejorado la calidad de este tipo de mensajes publicitarios a lo largo de los últimos seis años.

Food and Beverage Advertising Aimed at Spanish Children Issued through Mobile Devices: A Study from a Social Marketing and Happiness Management Perspective

“…In accordance with other studies [52,53,64,65], it was found that among the most used strategies to advertise food are promotions or offers, the appearance of known characters, or giving them away as gifts, clearly violating some of the standards that appear expressly in the norm. According to what was observed, these advertising strategies could be classified as misleading or abusive since the food advertised is linked with properties that are actually difficult to find.…”

“…There is a certain predisposition prior to the adhesion and linkage to the PAOS Code by the companies. However, this predisposition does not correspond with the purpose pursued by the administrations and the real achievement of the objectives, since it is clear that self-regulation is not an effective mechanism to avoid or reduce the exposure of children to advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages and, therefore, to promote a healthy lifestyle from childhood, as previous studies have evidenced [21,28,30,31,52,64] referring to other media, such as television. In this case, we study specifically mobile devices, because these previous studies did not look at other media different from television, and we are starting from the same base.…”

“…On the other hand, health authorities and public administrations in charge of this control have the same problem: either they are unaware of this violation or they are not interested in censoring, a priori, such advertising. Even though the legal framework for food and beverage advertising in Spain is based on superior Community regulations, the truth is that, as already indicated by other researchers [ 52 , 64 ], it has serious deficiencies. As a support for this, our results show that: The same companies that voluntarily adhere to the NAOS strategy are those that violate the code of ethics.…”

“…However, regulations aimed at prevention are quite limited, as there is some regulation, but they are relaxed in relation to compliance with their codes [63], or insufficient [64]. This is where social marketing comes in, trying to influence people's behaviour in search of a more beneficial target [65].…”

“…However, regulations aimed at prevention are quite limited, as there is some regulation, but they are relaxed in relation to compliance with their codes [ 63 ], or insufficient [ 64 ].…”