Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Aug 1;12(4):799-807.
doi: 10.5114/aoms.2016.60969. Epub 2016 Jul 1.

Analysis of food advertising to children on Spanish television: probing exposure to television marketing

Daniel Campos  1 , Juan José Hernández-Torres  2 , Ahmad Agil  3 , Mariano Comino  1 , Juan Carlos López  1 , Victoria Macías  1 , Cristina Campoy  4
Affiliations

Analysis of food advertising to children on Spanish television: probing exposure to television marketing

Daniel Campos et al. Arch Med Sci. .

Abstract

Introduction: We aimed to assess longitudinal changes in television (TV) food advertising during 2013 compared to 2007, measuring children's exposure to healthy and unhealthy advertisements, after the new European and Spanish Public Health laws published in 2011.

Material and methods: Two thematic channels for children (TC), and 2 generalist channels (GC) for all ages were recorded, between April and May 2013, on 2 week and 2 weekend days. Food advertisements were classified as core (CFA) (nutrient dense, low energy), non-core (NCFA) (unbalanced energy profile or high in energy), or others (OFA) (supermarkets and special food).

Results: One thousand two hundred sixty-three food advertisements were recorded (TC: 579/GC: 684) in 2013. NCFA were the most shown (54.9%) in the regular full day TV programming (p < 0.001). In 2013, children watching GC had a higher relative risk of being exposed to fast food advertisements than when watching TC (RR = 2.133, 95% CI: 1.398-3.255); CFA were broadcast most frequently in 2013 (GC: 23.7%; and TC: 47.2%) vs. 2007 (TC: 22.9%) (p < 0.001). The proportion of broadcasting between NCFA/CFA and OFA food advertisements in children's peak time slots was higher on TC (203/162) during 2013 than on GC (189/140), and significantly higher than that shown on TC in 2007 (180/36, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Broadcasting of unhealthy TV food advertising on TC is lower today than six years ago; but, children's exposure to TV advertising of unhealthy food is worrying in Spain, and there is more exposure to unhealthy than healthy food by TV. Watching GC in 2013 had higher risk of being exposed to fast food advertisements than watching TC.

Keywords: childhood obesity; food publicity; policy food; television marketing.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Broadcasting of different groups of advertisements measured in frequency percentage on thematic channels (TC) and generalist channels (GC) (core food, non-core food and others) in Spain in 2007 and 2013. Time slot analysed is 7:00–22:00 on weekdays and 7:30–22:00 on weekend days according with references studied [21]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Anderson PM, Butcher KF. Childhood obesity: trends and potential causes. Future Children. 2006;16:19–45. - PubMed
    1. Alwan A. Global status report on noncommunicable diseases 2010. World Health Organization; 2011.
    1. Lobstein T, Baur L, Uauy R. Obesity in children and young people: a crisis in public health. Obes Rev. 2004;5(Suppl. 1):4–85. - PubMed
    1. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Kit BK, Flegal KM. Prevalence of childhood and adult obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. JAMA. 2014;311:806–14. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Curtin LR, Lamb MM, Flegal KM. Prevalence of high body mass index in US children and adolescents, 2007-2008. JAMA. 2010;303:242–9. - PubMed