The new elements even show a brief exhibition of food marketing, on television, social media, radio or billboards, leading to over -consumption in children. With ads for brand just as powerful, researchers call for emergency restrictions on global advertising to protect children’s health.
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Exposure to advertisements for rough foods (in relation to non-food) results in children and adolescents who consume significantly more calories during the day, regardless of the type of media advertising, according to a randomized crossover test presented at this year’s European Conference on World Congress.
The study found that people aged 7-15 years were exposed to just 5 minutes of food advertising for high content of saturated fats, sugar and/or salt (HFSS) average 130 kcal per day, which is equivalent to calories in two slices of bread.
Early research is presented, as many countries across Europe and globally are considering the application of unhealthy food advertising to tackle the growing levels of obesity in childhood.
“Our findings offer critical new information on the extent, nature and impact of unhealthy food marketing through different types of media information on young people’s nutrition behavior,” said Professor Emma Boyland from the University of Liverpool. “Even a brief exposure to high -fat food trading can lead to excessive calorie consumption and possibly weight gain, especially young people who are more sensitive to advertising and whose nutrition standards affect their health.”
The causes of obesity are complex and are affected by many factors. While research has highlighted links between advertising HFS foods in audiovisual media and direct children [1] and later consumption [2]Few are known about the impact of other forms of media, including the brand (ie, ads that only have brand elements such as logos, but no food or drink products) or audio ads (eg podcasts, radio), for food patterns.
It is also not clear whether the food advertising results differ from the social -demographic characteristics of individuals and how it can contribute to health inequalities.
To further explore this, the researchers conducted a randomized crossover test to quantify the impact of HFSS Food (VS Non-Food) advertising report on direct and later children’s intake and to evaluate if it was mitigated by advertising content (only for brand) [e.g., TV] vs optician [some social media posts] vs. [podcasts] against static [paper billboards]), or socio -demographic characteristics.
In total, 240 volunteers aged 7 and 15 from schools across the MerseySide of the United Kingdom were participated in the study. In two different cases, the participants were exposed to five minutes of HFSS food and then on non -food ads that were either only brand or based on products through one of the four different means.
The researchers then measured the subsequent intake of snacks and lunch and their height and weight to calculate the Body Mass Index (BMI). Postal codes were used to calculate the socio -economic status at the area level (SES) using the 2019 English Degree Index.
The analysis found that after exposure to HFSS food ads, children consumed more snacks (+58.4 kcals), more lunch (+72.5 kcals) and more foods in total (snacks and lunch, +130.90 kcals) than after exposure to non -food ads.
Interestingly, advertising content did not contain this result, so that the brand ads were just as effective as product ads in increasing intake.
Although neither the type of media (ie, audiovisual, optic, sound, static image) nor socio -economic ranking with the measurement of children, the researchers found that for each standardized increase in BMI (ZBMI, adapted to the age and sex of a child). According to Professor Boyland, “our results show that unhealthy food marketing leads to constant increases in calorie intake to young people at a level sufficient to drive weight gain over time.
