Abstract
BackgroundMarketing of unhealthy foods and beverages is recognized as a contributing factor to the global increase in overweight and obesity, particularly among children. Such marketing negatively affects children’s dietary preferences, food choices, purchasing requests, and consumption patterns. Given that little is known about food marketing in Africa, including in Uganda, monitoring children’s exposure to food marketing is essential to generate evidence on the problem and develop meaningful policy responses. The aim of this study was to describe the food and beverage marketing environment surrounding schools in urban and peri-urban areas of Kampala city.MethodsOutdoor advertising around 25 randomly sampled primary and secondary schools within a radius of 250 m of each school was mapped. Information on size, setting, type, and position of the advertisements and the healthiness of the foods and beverages promoted was collected using the INFORMAS Outdoor Advertising Protocol. The occurrence of advertising was described using frequencies, median, and density per 100m2.ResultsA total of 1034 branded advertisements were identified around the schools. Of these, 86% featured unhealthy products, 7% healthy products, and 7% miscellaneous products. The most advertised products were sugar-sweetened beverages and alcoholic beverages (51 and 23%, respectively). Schools in the urban area were surrounded by more unhealthy ads than those in the peri-urban areas (median of 45 vs 24 advertisements).ConclusionThe widespread extent of unhealthy food and beverage advertisements around primary and secondary schools highlights the need for food marketing regulation in Uganda, in line with the World Health Organization’s recommendations, to ensure that young people are protected from unhealthy food marketing.
Highlights
Childhood obesity has become one of the most pressing public health concerns of the twenty-first century [1]
It is well known that marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages can affect children’s dietary preferences, purchasing requests and consumption patterns [6,7,8,9], and encourage unhealthy dietary practices [11] which in turn can contribute to rapid weight gain in early childhood [12]
Most of the adverts were for unhealthy foods and beverages (86%), 7% were for healthy foods and 7% were for miscellaneous foods
Summary
Childhood obesity has become one of the most pressing public health concerns of the twenty-first century [1]. Among the contributing factors to the global increase in childhood obesity is the marketing of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods and beverages [6,7,8,9]. Studies have consistently shown that most outdoor food advertisements (ads) are featuring unhealthy foods and beverages [12, 15,16,17,18]. Marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages is recognized as a contributing factor to the global increase in overweight and obesity, among children. Such marketing negatively affects children’s dietary preferences, food choices, purchasing requests, and consumption patterns. The aim of this study was to describe the food and beverage marketing environment surrounding schools in urban and peri-urban areas of Kampala city
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