Abstract
BackgroundTo explore the extent and nature of television food advertising especially unhealthy food advertising to primary school children in Xi’an, China.MethodsTelevision data were recorded for 2 weekdays and 2 weekend days between 6:00 and 22:00 during May and June in 2012 from a total of five television channels most popular with children in Xi’an. Pearson χ2 tests and logistic regression were applied to determine differences in the proportion of healthy food, unhealthy food and miscellaneous food advertisements for different channels, programs, dates, viewing periods and the use of persuasive marketing tactics.ResultsOf the 5527 advertisements transcribed, 25.5 % were for food, among which 48.1 % were considered to be unhealthy. The frequency of food advertisements was 6 per hour per channel, including 3 unhealthy food advertisements. Compared with healthy and miscellaneous food advertisements, more unhealthy food advertisements were shown during afternoon, weekends and children’s non-peak viewing times as well as on children’s television channels, central television channels and non-children’s programmes. Unhealthy foods contributed the highest proportion of all food advertisements containing promotional characters (51.7 %) and premium offers (59.1 %). Both promotional characters and premium offers appeared more on non-children’s television channels.ConclusionsThe majority of food advertisements were for unhealthy food. More unhealthy food ads were shown in children’s non-peak time and afternoon as well as non-children’s channels. More children-oriented persuasive marketing tactics were used in unhealthy food ads especially in non-children’s channels. Therefore, intervening in the entrance of unhealthy foods into the market and establishing regulations related to food advertising especially unhealthy food advertisements are important strategies to prevent children’s exposure to unhealthy food and childhood obesity.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3468-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
To explore the extent and nature of television food advertising especially unhealthy food advertising to primary school children in Xi’an, China
Most of the food ads were for non-core food contributing 48.1 % of all food ads
Interpretation of total food ads In our study, TV food advertising patterns were compared on five channels, and retail food and drink were the most frequently advertised products on TV (25.5 % of all ads), which was greater than the reported level globally (18 %) but less than that in Australia (31.1 %) and the entire Asia-Pacific area [20,21,22]
Summary
To explore the extent and nature of television food advertising especially unhealthy food advertising to primary school children in Xi’an, China. Within the last 20–30 years, the number of overweight and obese children has increased rapidly throughout the. Not merely supermarkets and television (TV) viewing, convenience stores, and the internet compose the bulk of sites for children to be exposed to food marketing. The development and expansion of unhealthy food marketing has become an important environmental factor leading to childhood obesity, which automatically triggers the purchase and consumption behaviours of children such as nutrition knowledge, preferences, purchase behaviour, and dietrelated health surrounding food [10, 11]. The increase of inactive indoor lifestyles including watching TV, playing video games, and using the internet, supports the possibility of more energy-dense nutrient-poor dietary intakes underlying the dramatic rise in childhood obesity [9, 12, 13]
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