De relatie tussen televisiereclame voor voedingsmiddelen en consumptiepatronen van kinderen

Abstract

Television food advertising is often named as a cause for the increased prevalence of childhood overweight. This popular conception is driven by the hypothesis that children who are often exposed to advertising for energy-dense food are expected to have a less healthy diet than children who are less often exposed. The present study refines this hypothesis by focusing at the differential impact of children’s food advertising exposure at a brand, a category, and a total consumption level. In a diary study in 234 households with children aged 4 to 12 years, we investigated the relation between children’s exposure to energy-dense food advertising and their consumption of (a) advertised brands, (b) energy-dense food products, and (c) food products overall. Our results show that exposure to food advertising was significantly related to children’s consumption of advertised brands and energy-dense food, but not to total food consumption. In other words, consistent with theories predicting spill-over effects of advertising, the impact of television food advertising generalized to other brands within the same product category as the advertised brand. Thus, our findings confirm the assumption that advertising exposure unbalances children’s diets, and thereby adds to calorific intake.