Food Advertising During Children's Television In Canada and The UK
Posted on: Thursday, 28 May 2009, 11:42 CDT
Advertisements shown during children's television before new restrictive regulations were introduced were not any more focused on unhealthy food than adverts shown at other times, according to research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.A common belief that TV advertisers were targeting children in particular with unhealthy foods before new Ofcom regulations were introduced in 2007 to prevent this, was not the case, researchers found, questioning what real impact the regulations will actually have.
Growing rates of obesity and overweight children in developed countries is a current concern and it is commonly believed that TV adverts for less healthy foods contribute to this problem.
New regulations came into effect in the UK in 2007 to prohibit adverts for less healthy foods during or around programmes "of particular appeal to" (OPAT) children . In Canada, self-regulated codes of practice on TV food advertising to children were recently strengthened.
Researchers from the UK, Canada and the USA studied the nutritional content of food adverts and adverts likely to be seen by children (i.e. shown during children's programmes) in the UK and Canada before regulations were introduced.
All food adverts broadcast on four popular channels in Canada and three terrestrial commercial channels in the UK during a week-long period in 2006 were analysed for the study.
The researchers linked these adverts to relevant nutritional data. They also identified which food adverts were for "less healthy" products, using the criteria in the UK regulations.
Collectively, 2,315 food related adverts broadcast in Canada and 1,365 broadcast in the UK were analysed and overall, 52-61% were for less healthy products. Only 5-11% of all the adverts shown were ones likely to be seen by children.
Just 5% of the food adverts seen would have been prohibited under the UK regulations, the researchers found.
The authors concluded that there was little evidence that food described in adverts likely to be seen by children were any less healthy than those shown at other times and that few food adverts would have been prohibited by the new regulations.
They said: "This is the first published study exploring TV food advertising to children in the context of the Ofcom regulations implemented in the UK in April 2007. Few food advertisements are likely to be prohibited under the new UK regulations."
---------
On The Net:
BMJ-British Medical Journal
Related Articles
- Online Computer Games May Encourage Children To Eat Healthy Foods
- International Food Protection Training Institute to Deliver Inaugural Training Course to Food Safety Regulators
- Mantra to Receive Federal Funding through National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program
- Children Who Have Family Dinner Smoke Less
- OmniLytics Reports That FDA Amends Food Additive Regulations to Allow for Bacteriophage Use; Use of Bacteriophage for Listeria on Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry
- Introducing the UK Industrial Flooring Market Research Report Includes UK Food Safety 'General Food Hygiene' Regulations
- Environmental Control Corporation Currently Undergoing Final Testing of Their Catalytic Muffler at Environment Canada's Emissions Research and Measurement Division in Ottawa
- Fat Hits the Fire: US Food Companies Zap Adverts on Children's Television
- Reinventing Food Safety Regulation
- Report Touts Centralized Food Safety Regulations
Rating: 3.1 / 5 (11 votes)
 |
 |
Rate this article:
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds