Abstract
BackgroundChildhood overweight in Guatemala is now becoming a public health concern. Child-oriented marketing contributes to increase children’s food preference, purchase and consumption. This study sought to assess the availability of child-oriented snack foods sold in school kiosks and convenience stores near public schools in Guatemala, to identify the marketing techniques used in child-oriented snack food packages and to classify the snacks as “healthy” or “less-healthy”.MethodsWe purchased all child-oriented snacks found in stores inside and within 200 square meters from four schools in an urban community. Snacks were classified as child-oriented if the package had any promotional characters, premium offers, children′s television/movie tie-ins, sports references, or the word “child”. We used a checklist to assess child-oriented references and price. Snacks were classified as “healthy” or “less-healthy” according to the UK standards for the Nutritional Profiling Model.ResultsWe analyzed 106 packages found in 55 stores. The most commonly used technique was promotional characters (92.5%) of which 32.7% were brand-specific characters. Premium offers were found in 34% of packages and were mostly collectibles (50%). Most marketing techniques were located on the front and covered nearly 25% of the package surface. Median (interquartile range) price was US$ 0.19 (0.25). Nutrition labels were found in 91 (86%) packages and 41% had a nutrition related health claim. Most snacks (97.1%) were classified as “less-healthy”.ConclusionIn Guatemala, the food industry targets children through several marketing techniques promoting inexpensive and unhealthy snacks in the school environment. Evidence-based policies restricting the use of promotional characters in unhealthy snack food packages need to be explored as a contributing strategy to control the obesity epidemic.
Highlights
Childhood overweight in Guatemala is becoming a public health concern
35 million obese children less than 5 years of age live in low-middle income countries (LMIC) [1]
This study sought to assess the availability of child-oriented snack foods sold in school kiosks and convenience stores near public schools in Guatemala, to identify the marketing techniques used in child-oriented snack food packages, and to classify the child-oriented snacks as “healthy” or “less-healthy”
Summary
Childhood overweight in Guatemala is becoming a public health concern. Child-oriented marketing contributes to increase children’s food preference, purchase and consumption. A LMIC, is currently struggling with the double burden of disease [2], where perinatal and infectious diseases coexist with chronic non-communicable diseases as a result of demographic and lifestyle changes These changes include an aging population coupled with the adoption of unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles [3,4]. Food branding and licensed characters on packaging have been found to significantly influence children’s snack preferences [10,11] Given that they are used for high sugar, fat and sodium foods [12], these marketing techniques contribute, in part, to increase food preference, purchase and consumption of these foods [13,14,15], and lead to an increased risk of obesity
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