Food marketing and gender among children and adolescents: a scoping review

Luciana Castronuovo,Lorena Allemandi,María Victoria Tiscornia,Leila Guarnieri

doi:10.1186/s12937-021-00706-4

Abstract

BackgroundPervasive marketing of unhealthy foods is a contributing factor to the growth of the global epidemic of childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity. Sex and gender differences come into play in the design of and responses to these marketing strategies, contributing to the perpetuation of stereotyped behavior and generating disparities in food choices and health. The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature regarding gender differences in food marketing design and perception among children and adolescents to facilitate evidence-based policy dialogues to address gender-based health disparities in NCD prevention.MethodsScoping review of articles published in scientific journals in English and Spanish, from 2003 to 2018, that addressed the influence of food marketing among children and adolescents including a gender perspective. The methodological quality of each article was assessed following criteria specific to each study design.ResultsFrom a total of 37 articles (39 studies) included in the review, 17 were experimental and 22 had descriptive, cross-sectional designs. Twenty-one studies were found to have low methodological quality, while 10 and 8 were of medium and high quality, respectively. A total of 23 studies among children and adolescents found gender-based differences. Differences were found in the following dimensions: food marketing on intake; responses to specific marketing; perceptions and attitudes towards food marketing and marketing regulation initiatives; exposure to food advertising and gendered marketing content. The evidence was not conclusive in any of the dimensions.ConclusionsThe evidence suggests that food marketing has a similar impact on the consumption of unhealthy foods on boys and girls, but boys were found to be exposed to food advertising more intensively and their preferences to be more affected by this exposure, coinciding with a male-dominant advertising content. Limitations of these studies include taking gender as an unproblematic construct equivalent to biological sex and the lack of studies focused on developing countries. As gender is a cross-sectional dimension that interacts with other factors driving health disparities, an integrated gender perspective is needed to develop effective, evidence-based policies to control food marketing and tackle the childhood overweight and obesity pandemic.

Highlights

Pervasive marketing of unhealthy foods is a contributing factor to the growth of the global epidemic of childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity
We identified and assessed the methodological quality of published scientific articles that addressed the influence of food marketing on eating behaviors among children and adolescents including a gender perspective
Inclusion criteria Studies were considered eligible for this scoping review if they met the following inclusion criteria: a) presented evidence pertaining to children and adolescents up to 18 years old; b) was published in Spanish or English from 2003 to 2018; c) addressed at least one of the following dimensions of interest: a theoretical discussion of the association between food marketing strategies and gender disparities; a model to estimate how food advertising incorporates gender in combination with other attributes; differential food marketing strategies to target specific genders; an evaluation of gender-based differences in the influence of food marketing on eating behaviors; Editorial and commentary pieces, grey literature and articles that did not report specific data pertaining children and adolescents were excluded from this study

Summary

Introduction

Pervasive marketing of unhealthy foods is a contributing factor to the growth of the global epidemic of childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that children’s TV shows in Latin America include more food ads than programs targeting the general public; the food products marketed to children on TV have a lower nutritional quality than products advertised to other audiences [10]. This has been documented in Argentina [11, 12]. They employ a wide range of media and a diversity of strategies to deliver their messages, including advertising in school environments, food packaging, TV, internet, and social media platforms [10, 14, 15]

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Discussion

Conclusion