Outdoor advertising, obesity, and soda consumption: a cross-sectional study

Deborah A Cohen,Frederick J Zimmerman,Lenard I Lesser

doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-20

Deborah A Cohen, Frederick J Zimmerman + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-20

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Abstract

BackgroundRecent research has shown that neighborhood characteristics are associated with obesity prevalence. While food advertising in periodicals and television has been linked to overweight and obesity, it is unknown whether outdoor advertising is related to obesity.MethodsTo test the association between outdoor food advertising and obesity, we analyzed telephone survey data on adults, aged 18–98, collected from 220 census tracts in Los Angeles and Louisiana. We linked self-reported information on BMI and soda consumption with a database of directly observed outdoor advertisements.ResultsThe higher the percentage of outdoor advertisements promoting food or non-alcoholic beverages within a census tract, the greater the odds of obesity among its residents, controlling for age, race and educational status. For every 10% increase in food advertising, there was a 1.05 (95% CI 1.003 - 1.093, p<0.03) greater odds of being overweight or obese, controlling for other factors. Given these predictions, compared to an individual living in an area with no food ads, those living in areas in which 30% of ads were for food would have a 2.6% increase in the probability of being obese.ConclusionsThere is a relationship between the percentage of outdoor food advertising and overweight/obesity.

Highlights

Recent research has shown that neighborhood characteristics are associated with obesity prevalence
This study investigated whether individuals living in areas with higher proportions of outdoor food advertising, compared to those in living in areas with lower amounts, have greater odds of obesity and a higher rate of soda consumption
An important contribution of this work is to demonstrate that outdoor advertising is associated with a modest, but clinically meaningful, increased likelihood of obesity

Summary

Introduction

Recent research has shown that neighborhood characteristics are associated with obesity prevalence. While the causes of obesity are multifactorial, a growing body of evidence implicates food marketing as a major contributor to the epidemic [2,3]. Recent comprehensive reviews leave no doubt that a variety of marketing strategies increases food consumption in the laboratory environment and in natural settings [4,5,6]. The public health community does not know how large an effect food marketing has on population-level obesity status. There is limited research on advertising’s effect on consumption and obesity in adults outside the laboratory setting. Marketing research demonstrates that as marketing expenditures to promote a particular food increase, so do purchases of those foods [8,9,10].

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