Original ResearchThe extent and nature of food advertising to children on Spanish television in 2012 using an international food-based coding system and the UK nutrient profiling model
Introduction
The prevalence of childhood obesity in Spain, where about one in every three children are overweight,1 is among the highest in Europe.2 A highly probable contributing to this statistic is the intensive advertisement campaigns for energy-dense food and drinks, and their influence on children's food preferences and caloric intake.3 Although there are few studies linking directly food advertising and obesity in children,4, 5 there is strong evidence of the association of television (TV) viewing with greater consumption of energy-dense food and obesity.6, 7 One of the main potential mechanisms mediating this relationship is food advertising.8 Despite new technologies, TV remains the main channel for marketing food and drinks to children.9
In 2010, the World Health Organization endorsed the ‘Set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children’ encouraging Member States to: a) collect information on the extent, nature, and effects of food and drink marketing to children; and b) push through policies reducing the impact on children of marketing of foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt (HFSS).10 Although the majority of the EU countries rely on self-regulatory mechanisms, in Sweden any advertising targeted at children under the age of 12 years is banned and in the UK statutory rules apply to advertisements for HFSS foods on TV channels dedicated to children.9 In Spain, marketing techniques of TV advertisements of food and drinks (AFD) directed at children under 12 years are regulated by the Publicity, Activity, Obesity, and Health Code (PAOS code for its acronym in Spanish).11 This is a non-statutory code of co-regulation, supervised by the Spanish Food Safety and Nutrition Agency (AESAN for its Spanish acronym), that establishes the ethical principles and standards for the design and dissemination of advertising messages (e.g. avoid exploiting children's credulity or using famous persons popular with them). However, it doesn't regulate the nutritional quality of the advertised products or the broadcasting frequency. Though voluntary in nature, in 2009 the Federation of Radio and TV Organizations of the Spanish Autonomous Regions and the Associated Trade TV Union subscribed to the PAOS Code subjecting all TV food advertising targeted to children to regulation. Recently, the AESAN, PAOS Code sponsor agency, established a set of indicator measures for the longitudinal evaluation of the extent and nutritional value of AFD.12
Research on AFD directed at children in Spain is scarce and presents important limitations.13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 Some studies are merely informative in nature with a limited description of methodology and results.13, 16 Others record a small number of days and hours of broadcasting18 or channels.15 Finally, of two international studies with Spanish participation, one is a qualitative study14 and the other is based on a limited number of channels and days of broadcast.17 Their results showed that most advertised products were highly processed and energy-dense food and drinks, but the majority of the studies didn't analyze the nutritional profile of the products.
The main aim of this study was to perform a comprehensive analysis of the extent and nature of AFD directed at children in Spain using an international food-based system and the United Kingdom nutrient profiling model (UKNPM).19 This analysis will provide baseline data to compare follow-up data against and evaluate the impact of the PAOS code and other potential future interventions aimed at reducing children exposition to TV food advertising, in accordance with the recommendations of the AESAN and the international network for food and obesity/non-communicable diseases research, monitoring and action support.20
Section snippets
Study design
This is a cross-sectional study of AFD directed at children (<12 years old, according to PAOS Code) in Spain. The sample consists of 7 days (Monday through Sunday) worth of public broadcasting by five popular Terrestrial Digital Television (TDT) channels. Boing, Disney Channel, and Neox channels target child and adolescent populations (appealing-to-youth) and Antena 3 and Telecinco are the two general interest channels with the highest child audience ratings.21 Broadcastings were recorded
Results
We recorded 17,722 advertisements, with an average of 32.1 advertisements or 9.5 min of advertising per hour. Behind the promotion of the channel's own programming, food industry was the most advertised product category, which accounted for 4212 (23.7%) advertisements with an average duration of 15.9 s per AFD, and an average of 7.5 AFD per hour of broadcasting. Contrary to our hypothesis, AFD rate was greater during reinforced protected viewing times (protected time) (8.5 vs 7.2), although the
Discussion
In Spain, almost one of every four TV advertisements are for food products, averaging 7.5 AFD per hour of broadcasting. Based on studies on audience ratings22, 30 we estimated that Spanish children between the ages of four and 12 years are exposed to a daily average of 18.8 AFD and over 25 AFD for 7 to 12 year-olds. Close to two thirds are for HFSS products. However, we found a high level of disagreement between the two classification methods, as over one fifth of core AFD were HFSS according
Ethical approval
Ethical approval was not required because the design (cross sectional study of television advertisements) did not need Ethical Committee supervision in the institution.
Funding
This Project has been supported by the Spanish Health Research Fund of the Institute of Health Carlos III (Project grant number ENPY 1015/13) and the Spanish Consumers Organization (OCU).
Competing interests
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
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