The commercial food landscape: outdoor food advertising around primary schools in Australia

Abstract

Objective: Food marketing is linked to childhood obesity through its influence on children's food preferences, purchase requests and food consumption. We aimed to describe the volume and nature of outdoor food advertisements and factors associated with outdoor food advertising in the area surrounding Australian primary schools. Methods: Forty primary schools in Sydney and Wollongong were selected using random sampling within population density and socio‐economic strata. The area within a 500m radius of each school was scanned and advertisements coded according to pre‐defined criteria, including: food or non‐food product advertisement, distance from the school, size and location. Food advertisements were further categorised as core foods, non‐core foods and miscellaneous drinks (tea and coffee). Results: The number of advertisements identified was 9,151, of which 2,286 (25%) were for food. The number of non‐core food advertisements was 1,834, this accounted for 80% of food advertisements. Soft drinks and alcoholic beverages were the food products most commonly advertised around primary schools (24% and 22% of food advertisements, respectively). Non‐core food products were twice as likely to be advertised close to a primary school (95 non‐core food advertisements per km2 within 250 m vs. 46 advertisements per km2 within 250–500 m). Conclusions: The density of non‐core food advertisements within 500 m of primary schools, and the potential for repeated exposure of children to soft drink and alcoholic beverage advertisements in particular, highlights the need for outdoor food marketing policy intervention. Implications: Outdoor advertising is an important food marketing tool that should be considered in future debates on regulation of food marketing to children.

Density of outdoor food and beverage advertising around schools in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) and Manila (The Philippines) and implications for policy

“…Similar patterns were observed in an earlier study in Sydney, Australia using a similar methodology (1.2 vs. 0.6) (Kelly et al, 2008). While in each location there were larger numbers of food and beverage advertisements in area within 250 and 500m from schools, this comprised an area three times larger than the area within 250 m of schools.…”

“…This is similar to the proportion of these non-core products promoted on food advertisements in Sydney (80%) (Kelly et al, 2008), and in the UK, where only 11% of food advertising space (frequency x size of all food advertisements) was for core food products (Adams et al, 2011).…”

“…Advertised foods and drinks were classified as core/healthy, non-core/unhealthy and miscellaneous based on a classification system used in previous research on outdoor advertising (Kelly et al, 2008) and international research on television food advertising (Kelly et al, 2010). This classification system was refined to include a wider range of traditional Asian foods available in Mongolia and The Philippines (Table 2).…”

“…Outdoor advertising in particular works by integrating branded messages into daily activities and the cultural landscape, and also serves as an immediate cue for purchase when this is viewed in connection with food stores (Kelly et al, 2013). There have been four published studies specifically on outdoor food advertising: one study from Sydney, Australia (Kelly, Cretikos, Rogers, King, 2008), one conducted in 4 cities in the USA (Hillier et al, 2009), one in Northern England (Adams, Ganiti, White, 2011), and a forth in Wellington, New Zealand (Walton, Pearce, Day, 2009). These studies have consistently found that the majority of outdoor food advertisements are for unhealthy foods/drinks, and that the density of advertisements varies by neighbourhood characteristics.…”

“…Two of these studies (from Australia and New Zealand) have examined the area around schools and found unhealthy food marketing to be prevalent in the vicinity of schools (Kelly et al, 2008;Walton et al, 2009). While information on the prevalence of food and beverage marketing in low and middle income countries is limited, with only a few studies available that measured advertising on television (Consumers International, 2008;Kelly et al, 2010), it has been suggested that children in developing countries may be more vulnerable to food promotion because they have been traditionally less familiar with, and potentially less critical of, advertising (Hastings, McDermott, Angus, Stead, Thomson, 2006).…”