Kids hit hard by junk food advertising
Junk food ads are shown more frequently on TV at times when many children are watching, new Heart Foundation-funded research shows.
The research, led by the 成人大片鈥檚 Associate Professor Lisa Smithers and published in the聽聽today, also showed that children were exposed to twice as much unhealthy food advertising as healthy food advertising.
The research found that children would view more than 800 junk food ads each year, if they watched 80 minutes of television per day.
By building a bespoke TV monitoring system, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, Associate Professor Smithers鈥 team was able to capture an entire year鈥檚 worth of television and ads from one free-to-air commercial TV network in South Australia.
鈥淭his is the most robust data we鈥檝e seen anywhere. It is the largest dataset ever used by health researchers for examining food advertising in Australia, and probably the world. Most research in this area is based on only a few days of data, and there are no Australian studies taking seasonality into account,鈥 Associate Professor Smithers said.
Thirty thousand hours of television containing more than 500 hours of food advertisements (almost 100,000 food ads) were logged during 2016. The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating was used to group food and beverages into healthy, discretionary (i.e. unhealthy) and other categories.
Snack foods, crumbed/battered meats, takeaway/fast food and sugary drinks were among the most frequently advertised foods.
During children鈥檚 peak viewing times, the frequency and duration of 鈥渄iscretionary鈥 (ie, junk) food advertising was 2.3 times higher each hour than for healthy foods.
Across the year, discretionary food advertising peaked at 71 per cent of all food advertising in January, dropping to a low of 41 per cent in August.
鈥淒iet-related problems are the leading cause of disease in Australia, and the World Health Organization has concluded that food marketing influences the types of foods that children prefer to eat, ask their parents for, and ultimately consume,鈥澛燗ssociate Professor Smithers said.
Some countries and regions have implemented children鈥檚 television advertising bans (Quebec, Canada), junk food advertising bans (Norway), and requirements to publish healthy eating messages when unhealthy foods are advertised (France). In Australia, all advertising during children鈥檚 TV programs is covered by the Children鈥檚 Television Standards. There are other codes developed by industry groups that aim to limit Australian children鈥檚 exposure to unhealthy food advertising, however these codes are voluntary.
There is also no process for routine, independent monitoring of children鈥檚 exposure to food advertising.
鈥淎ustralian health, nutrition and policy experts agree that reducing children鈥檚 exposure to junk food ads is an important part of tackling obesity and there is broad public support for stronger regulation of advertising to protect children,鈥澛燗ssociate Professor Smithers said.
鈥淚 would love to see the results of our research play a role in protecting children from the effects of junk food advertising.鈥
A/Prof Smithers said the specially designed system, using a digital television tuner attached to a computer, had the potential for use across all Australian markets, as well as internationally.
鈥淭his is the kind of thing that would be fairly easy to set up to monitor change over time and to evaluate the impact of different policies,鈥 she said.
For example, researchers are now using the system to look at food advertising during sport.
鈥淭he advertising data collected for this project could have many users and collection is ongoing,鈥 said聽Associate Professor Smithers, who is open to enquiries from researchers about use of the data.
National Heart Foundation CEO Adjunct Professor John G Kelly said the research findings were disturbing. He said the Heart Foundation was very proud to be supporting emerging leaders such as聽Associate Professor Lisa Smithers, whose research was funded through a 2015 Vanguard grant.
鈥淎s a charity and the largest non-government funder of heart disease research in Australia, the Heart Foundation is proud to invest in research to help all Australians have better heart health.
鈥淭hanks to our generous donors, the Heart Foundation is able to make important research such as this happen.鈥