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Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Mar 31;12(4):964.
doi: 10.3390/nu12040964.

The Effects of Foods Embedded in Entertainment Media on Children's Food Choices and Food Intake: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses

Victoria Villegas-Navas  1 , Maria-Jose Montero-Simo  1 , Rafael A Araque-Padilla  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

The Effects of Foods Embedded in Entertainment Media on Children's Food Choices and Food Intake: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses

Victoria Villegas-Navas et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

While watching or playing with media, children are often confronted with food appearances. These food portrayals might be a potential factor that affects a child's dietary behaviors. We aimed to comprehensively expound the effects of these types of food appearances on dietary outcomes of children. Our objectives were to synthetize the evidence of the experiments that study the effects of foods embedded in children's entertainment media throughout a systematic review, to conduct two meta-analyses (food choice and intake) in order to quantify the effects, and to examine to what extent the effects of foods embedded in entertainment media varies across different moderating variables. We conducted a systematic search of five databases for studies published up to July 2018 regarding terms related to children and foods embedded in entertainment media. We identified 26 eligible articles, of which 13 (20 effect sizes) and 7 (13 effect sizes) were considered for a meta-analysis on food choice and intake, respectively. Most of the studies were assessed as having a middle risk of bias. Overall, food being embedded in entertainment media is a strategy that affects the eating behaviors of children. As most of the embedded foods in the included studies had low nutritional values, urgent measures are needed to address the problem of childhood obesity.

Keywords: children; choice; entertainment media; foods embedded; intake; meta-analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA diagram of search strategy.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Risk of bias graph.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plot of effect sizes on food choice.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Forest plot of effect sizes on food intake.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Funnel plot based on food choice.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Funnel plot based on food intake.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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