Media Characters as Spokespeople in U.S. Grocery Stores: Promoting Poor Nutritional Messages to Children

Abstract

Childhood obesity has become a global epidemic. Previous research has shown that exposure to media and advertising plays a role in childhood obesity and that most of the food marketing directed at children is for unhealthy products. This study examines the role that media characters, a prominent and potentially powerful tool in marketing, play in child-directed advertising in grocery stores. It also evaluates current industry-based efforts to regulate the landscape of child-directed advertising. Using the Go, Slow, Whoa nutritional rating system from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, characters in a conventional grocery store and a health-food store were found primarily on the packages of unhealthy products. The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, a coalition of corporations that pledged to market healthier products to children, generally failed to improve the character landscape and, in fact, signatory companies marketed more unhealthy foods using characters than non-participants did.