Abstract
BackgroundNeighborhood food cues have been inconsistently related to residents’ health, possibly due to variations in residents’ sensitivity to such cues. This study sought to investigate the degree to which children’s predisposition to eat upon exposure to food environment and food cues (external eating), could explain differences in strength of associations between their food consumption and the type of food outlets and marketing strategies present in their neighborhood.MethodsData were obtained from 616 6–12 y.o. children recruited into a population-based cross-sectional study in which food consumption was measured through a 24-h food recall and responsiveness to food cues measured using the external eating scale. The proportion of food retailers within 3 km of residence considered as “healthful” was calculated using a Geographical Information System. Neighborhood exposure to food marketing strategies (displays, discount frequency, variety, and price) for vegetables and soft drinks were derived from a geocoded digital marketing database. Adjusted mixed models with spatial covariance tested interaction effects of food environment indicators and external eating on food consumption.ResultsIn children with higher external eating scores, healthful food consumption was more positively related to vegetable displays, and more negatively to the display and variety of soft drinks. No interactions were observed for unhealthful food consumption and no main effects of food environment indicators were found on food consumption.ConclusionsChildren differ in their responsiveness to marketing-related visual food cues on the basis of their external eating phenotype. Strategies aiming to increase the promotion of healthful relative to unhealthful food products in stores may be particularly beneficial for children identified as being more responsive to food cues.
Highlights
Neighborhood food cues have been inconsistently related to residents’ health, possibly due to variations in residents’ sensitivity to such cues
Participants were randomly selected from a pre-established database of households identified as likely to have children in the target age group, and who had indicated their willingness to participate in academic research
Descriptive statistics Of the 616 children recruited in the study, two had missing food consumption information and 30 had missing household income information
Summary
Neighborhood food cues have been inconsistently related to residents’ health, possibly due to variations in residents’ sensitivity to such cues. Further evidence for the relationship between caloric excess/obesity and environmental exposure conditions comes from studies assessing the absolute or relative availability of food access points typically considered as unhealthful (e.g., fast food restaurants, convenience store) or healthful (e.g., supermarket, fresh food outlets) [13] These studies tend to use geo-referenced store locations to determine the availability of food stores, most commonly within one’s neighborhood, be it defined using administrative units like census tracts, or unique geographical areas around the individual’s residence (or other reference points) using a pre-defined distance (e.g. 1-km or 1-mile radius). Food marketing research has been mostly focused on television advertising with calls for more research on the impact of non-television food marketing [25], including sales promotions of energy-dense nutrition poor foods [26]
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