Attentional bias for food cues in advertising among overweight and hungry children: An explorative experimental study

Frans Folkvord,Doeschka J Anschütz,Moniek Buijzen

doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.103792

Frans Folkvord, Doeschka J Anschütz + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.103792

Copy DOI

Abstract

People with an increased motivation for rewarding substances show increased automatic selective attention towards cues that are related to that specific substance. The aim of this study was to explore if overweight and hungry children have an attentional bias for food cues in food advertising. A randomized between-subject design was used with 95 children who played an advergame that promoted either energy-dense snacks or non-food products. Overweight children had a higher gaze duration for the food cues compared to normal weight children. No effects were found of overweight on the attentional bias measurements for the non-food cues. Furthermore, hungrier children had a higher gaze duration, a higher number of fixations, and a faster latency of initial fixation on the food cues than less hungry children, while we found the opposite results for the non-food cues. The findings largely confirm our expectations, adding important knowledge about individual susceptibility to food advertisements. Overweight and hungrier children seem to be stronger affected by food advertising than normal weight and less hungry children. This study is the first that examined attentional bias in a food advertisement that is highly comparable to advertisements that are used by food companies, thereby increasing the external validity of the findings. The second strength is that the development of an attentional bias for food cues is developing at a young age and it was examined in a real-life situation.

Highlights

Childhood obesity remains a major public health priority worldwide (Silventoinen et al, 2004)
It is assumed that schools with a higher percentage of overweight children were more likely to participate in our study because the board was more interested in possible factors that could explain obesity among children
Sex and age were included in the models as covariates because other studies have shown that these variables are associated with attentional bias for food cues5,7

Summary

Introduction

Childhood obesity remains a major public health priority worldwide (Silventoinen et al, 2004). A central factor in understanding the impact of the environment on the obesity epidemic will be to explore the influence of industry-developed food cues on the brain and behaviour (Brownell & Gold, 2014; Folkvord, 2019). Food advertisements are omnipresent and contrived to be attention-grabbing, activating people’s consumer behaviours. These food advertisements are mostly promoting energy-dense snacks, high in salt, sugar and fat, and have low nutritional value (WHO, 2009). Considering that most food advertising promotes unhealthy, palatable, and rewarding food products, it is considered to be an important factor in the current obesity epidemic (Boyland et al, 2016; Folkvord, 2019; Folkvord et al, 2016; Harris, Bargh, & Brownell, 2009). Several studies have shown that children with overweight or obesity may be vulnerable to these effects (Folkvord et al, 2015, 2016; Halford et al, 2004, 2007)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion