IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v65y2007i7p1311-1323.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of television advertisements for junk food versus nutritious food on children's food attitudes and preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Dixon, Helen G.
  • Scully, Maree L.
  • Wakefield, Melanie A.
  • White, Victoria M.
  • Crawford, David A.

Abstract

Television (TV) food advertising has attracted criticism for its potential role in promoting unhealthy dietary practices among children. Content analyses indicate junk food advertising is prevalent on Australian children's TV; healthy eating is rarely promoted. This paper presents (a) a cross-sectional survey examining associations between children's regular TV viewing habits and their food-related attitudes and behaviour; and (b) an experiment assessing the impact of varying combinations of TV advertisements (ads) for unhealthy and healthy foods on children's dietary knowledge, attitudes and intentions. The experimental conditions simulated possible models for regulating food ads on children's TV. Participants were 919 grade five and six students from schools in Melbourne, Australia. The survey showed that heavier TV use and more frequent commercial TV viewing were independently associated with more positive attitudes toward junk food; heavier TV use was also independently associated with higher reported junk food consumption. The experiment found that ads for nutritious foods promote selected positive attitudes and beliefs concerning these foods. Findings are discussed in light of methodological issues in media effects research and their implications for policy and practice. It is concluded that changing the food advertising environment on children's TV to one where nutritious foods are promoted and junk foods are relatively unrepresented would help to normalize and reinforce healthy eating.

Suggested Citation

  • Dixon, Helen G. & Scully, Maree L. & Wakefield, Melanie A. & White, Victoria M. & Crawford, David A., 2007. "The effects of television advertisements for junk food versus nutritious food on children's food attitudes and preferences," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(7), pages 1311-1323, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:65:y:2007:i:7:p:1311-1323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(07)00273-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Farrelly, M.C. & Healton, C.G. & Davis, K.C. & Messeri, P. & Hersey, J.C. & Haviland, M.L., 2002. "Getting to the truth: Evaluating national tobacco countermarketing campaigns," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(6), pages 901-907.
    2. Wakefield, M. & Terry-McElrath, Y. & Emery, S. & Saffer, H. & Chaloupka, F.J. & Szczypka, G. & Flay, B. & O'Malley, P.M. & Johnston, L.D., 2006. "Effect of televised, tobacco company - Funded smoking prevention advertising on youth smoking-related beliefs, intentions, and behavior," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(12), pages 2154-2160.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elena Briones Alonso & Lara Cockx & Johan Swinnen, 2017. "Culture and Food Security," Working Papers id:12061, eSocialSciences.
    2. Benito-Ostolaza, Juan Miguel & Echavarri, Rebeca & Garcia-Prado, Ariadna & Oses-Eraso, Nuria, 2021. "Using visual stimuli to promote healthy snack choices among children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    3. Veronica Piziak, 2012. "A Pilot Study of a Pictorial Bilingual Nutrition Education Game to Improve the Consumption of Healthful Foods in a Head Start Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7, April.
    4. Marek Jenöffy, 2023. "A Seesaw Model of Choices," Working Papers hal-04136550, HAL.
    5. Filipovic, Jelena, 2023. "Television food ads aimed at children in South-Eastern Europe: Cultural outlook and implications," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Binder, Alice & Naderer, Brigitte & Matthes, Jörg, 2019. "Do children's food choices go with the crowd? Effects of majority and minority peer cues shown within an audiovisual cartoon on children's healthy food choice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 42-50.
    7. Judith Brown & Jan Nicholson & Dorothy Broom & Michael Bittman, 2011. "Television Viewing by School-Age Children: Associations with Physical Activity, Snack Food Consumption and Unhealthy Weight," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 101(2), pages 221-225, April.
    8. David Blanco-Herrero & Jorge Gallardo-Camacho & Carlos Arcila-Calderón, 2021. "Health Advertising during the Lockdown: A Comparative Analysis of Commercial TV in Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-26, January.
    9. Marek Jenöffy-Lochau, 2013. "Information, Credibility, and Endogenous Preferences," Post-Print hal-04139636, HAL.
    10. Bentley, R. Alexander & Ormerod, Paul, 2010. "A rapid method for assessing social versus independent interest in health issues: A case study of 'bird flu' and 'swine flu'," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 482-485, August.
    11. Howard, Larry L. & Prakash, Nishith, 2009. "Do Means-Tested School Lunch Subsidies Change Children's Weekly Consumption Patterns?," IZA Discussion Papers 4427, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Brown, Judith E. & Broom, Dorothy H. & Nicholson, Jan M. & Bittman, Michael, 2010. "Do working mothers raise couch potato kids? Maternal employment and children's lifestyle behaviours and weight in early childhood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1816-1824, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hiromu Nishiuchi & Masataka Taguri & Yoshiki Ishikawa, 2016. "Using a Marginal Structural Model to Design a Theory-Based Mass Media Campaign," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-12, July.
    2. Hong Liu & Wei Tan, 2009. "The Effect of Anti-Smoking Media Campaign on Smoking Behavior: The California Experience," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(1), pages 29-47, May.
    3. Chau Quy Ngo & Ryan G. Chiu & Hanh Thi Chu & Giap Van Vu & Quang Nhat Nguyen & Long Hoang Nguyen & Tung Thanh Tran & Cuong Tat Nguyen & Bach Xuan Tran & Carl A. Latkin & Cyrus S.H. Ho & Roger C.M. Ho, 2018. "Correlated Factors with Quitting Attempts Among Male Smokers in Vietnam: A QUITLINE-Based Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Niko de Silva & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Smoke Signals and Mixed Messages: Medical Marijuana & Drug Policy Signalling Effects," CREMA Working Paper Series 2011-18, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    5. Lemarié, Linda & Chebat, Jean-Charles, 2013. "Resist or comply: Promoting responsible gambling among youth," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 137-140.
    6. Elizabeth C. Hair & David R. Holtgrave & Alexa R. Romberg & Morgane Bennett & Jessica M. Rath & Megan C. Diaz & Donna M. Vallone, 2019. "Cost-Effectiveness of Using Mass Media to Prevent Tobacco Use among Youth and Young Adults: The FinishIt Campaign," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-9, November.
    7. Amy Jordan & Jessica Taylor Piotrowski & Amy Bleakley & Giridhar Mallya, 2012. "Developing Media Interventions to Reduce Household Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 640(1), pages 118-135, March.
    8. Gloria Thomasia Dossou & Morgane Guillou-Landreat & Loic Lemain & Sophie Lacoste-Badie & Nathan Critchlow & Karine Gallopel-Morvan, 2023. "How Do Young Adult Drinkers React to Varied Alcohol Warning Formats and Contents? An Exploratory Study in France," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(15), pages 1-19, August.
    9. Hoek, Janet & Newcombe, Rhiannon & Walker, Sue, 2011. "Promoting youth smokefree behaviour: An evaluation of a social norms campaign," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 58-64.
    10. Emily Savell & Anna B Gilmore & Gary Fooks, 2014. "How Does the Tobacco Industry Attempt to Influence Marketing Regulations? A Systematic Review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-10, February.
    11. Yang, Zhiyong & Floyd, Kristopher & Tanner, John F., 2019. "Effects of antismoking messages from media on adolescent smoking: The roles of family, school, and culture," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 222-231.
    12. Balasubramanya, Soumya & Pfaff, Alexander & Bennear, Lori & Tarozzi, Alessandro & Ahmed, Kazi Matin & Schoenfeld, Amy & van Geen, Alexander, 2014. "Evolution of households' responses to the groundwater arsenic crisis in Bangladesh: information on environmental health risks can have increasing behavioral impact over time," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(5), pages 631-647, October.
    13. Donald P. Green & Adam Zelizer & Winston Lin, 2021. "How Effective Are Radio Messages Aimed at Reducing Teen Births Among Latinas? A Randomized Controlled Trial," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(4), pages 695-722, August.
    14. Niko de Silva & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Smoke Signals and Mixed Messages: Medical Marijuana & Drug Policy Signalling Effects," CREMA Working Paper Series 2011-18, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    15. Yang, Zhiyong & Netemeyer, Richard G., 2015. "Differential effects of parenting strategies on child smoking trajectories: A longitudinal assessment over twelve years," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1273-1282.
    16. Amira Osman & Sarah D. Kowitt & Paschal Sheeran & Kristen L. Jarman & Leah M. Ranney & Adam O. Goldstein, 2018. "Information to Improve Public Perceptions of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA’s) Tobacco Regulatory Role," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-13, April.
    17. Bialous, Stella Aguinaga & Mandel, Lev L. & Glantz, Stanton A. Ph.D., 2006. "Avoiding “Truth”: Tobacco Industry Promotion of Life Skills Training," University of California at San Francisco, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education qt2cd8t2jd, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, UC San Francisco.
    18. Christopher Man-Kit Leung & Alexander K. C. Leung & Kam-Lun Ellis Hon & Albert Yim-Fai Kong, 2009. "Fighting Tobacco Smoking - a Difficult but Not Impossible Battle," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, January.
    19. Patricia A McDaniel & E Anne Lown & Ruth E Malone, 2017. "“It doesn’t seem to make sense for a company that sells cigarettes to help smokers stop using them”: A case study of Philip Morris’s involvement in smoking cessation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-22, August.
    20. Sandra C Jones & Sabine Hall & Kypros Kypri, 2017. "Should I drink responsibly, safely or properly? Confusing messages about reducing alcohol-related harm," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-14, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:65:y:2007:i:7:p:1311-1323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.