IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v15y2018i3p560-d137213.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Health Halo Trend in UK Television Food Advertising Viewed by Children: The Rise of Implicit and Explicit Health Messaging in the Promotion of Unhealthy Foods

Author

Listed:
  • Rosa Whalen

    (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZX, UK)

  • Joanne Harrold

    (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZX, UK)

  • Simon Child

    (Cambridge Assessment, Cambridge CB1 2EU, UK)

  • Jason Halford

    (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZX, UK)

  • Emma Boyland

    (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZX, UK)

Abstract

Monitoring the creative content within food marketing to children is strongly advocated by public health authorities, but few studies address the prevalence of health-related messaging in television adverts. Food and beverage adverts ( n = 18,888 in 2008, n = 6664 in 2010) from UK television channels popular with children were coded and analyzed. Physical-activity depiction displayed an 18.8 percentage point increase from 2008 (4.4%) to 2010 (23.2%). Of the food adverts containing physical-activity depiction in 2010, 81.1% were for non-core foods. The appearance of health claims in food adverts in 2010 increased 4.1 percentage points from 2008 levels (20.7% to 24.8%) where the majority of food adverts featuring health and nutrition claims were for non-core foods (58.3%). Health-related (e.g., health/nutrition, weight loss/diet) appeals were used in 17.1% of food adverts during peak child-viewing times, rising to 33.0% of adverts shown on dedicated children’s channels in 2010. Implicit (physical activity) and explicit (health claims) health messages are increasingly prevalent in UK television food advertising viewed by children, and are frequently used to promote unhealthy foods. Policy makers in the UK should consider amendments to the existing statutory approach in order to address this issue.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosa Whalen & Joanne Harrold & Simon Child & Jason Halford & Emma Boyland, 2018. "The Health Halo Trend in UK Television Food Advertising Viewed by Children: The Rise of Implicit and Explicit Health Messaging in the Promotion of Unhealthy Foods," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-9, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:3:p:560-:d:137213
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/3/560/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/3/560/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kelly, B. & Halford, J.C.G. & Boyland, E.J. & Chapman, K. & Bautista-Castaño, I. & Berg, C. & Caroli, M. & Cook, B. & Coutinho, J.G. & Effertz, T. & Grammatikaki, E. & Keller, K. & Leung, R. & Manios,, 2010. "Television food advertising to children: A global perspective," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(9), pages 1730-1736.
    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. Giulia Lorenzoni & Clara Minto & Matteo Temporin & Elisa Fuscà & Anna Bolzon & Gianluca Piras & Sabino Iliceto & Marco Silano & Dario Gregori, 2019. "(Ab)use of Health Claims in Websites: The Case of Italian Bottled Waters," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-13, August.

    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. Andres Silva & Lindsey M. Higgins & Mohamud Hussein, 2015. "An Evaluation of the Effect of Child-Directed Television Food Advertising Regulation in the United Kingdom," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 63(4), pages 583-600, December.
    2. Tarabashkina, Liudmila & Quester, Pascale & Crouch, Roberta, 2016. "Exploring the moderating effect of children's nutritional knowledge on the relationship between product evaluations and food choice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 145-152.
    3. Elena Briones Alonso & Lara Cockx & Jo Swinnen, 2017. "Culture and food security," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 591898, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    4. Angela Chang & Peter J. Schulz & Tony Schirato & Brian J. Hall, 2018. "Implicit Messages Regarding Unhealthy Foodstuffs in Chinese Television Advertisements: Increasing the Risk of Obesity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Gloria Jiménez-Marín & Rodrigo Elías Zambrano & Araceli Galiano-Coronil & Rafael Ravina-Ripoll, 2020. "Food and Beverage Advertising Aimed at Spanish Children Issued through Mobile Devices: A Study from a Social Marketing and Happiness Management Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-20, July.
    6. María Teresa García-Nieto & Juan Enrique Gonzálvez-Vallés & Mónica Viñarás-Abad, 2021. "Social Responsibility and Misleading Advertising of Health Products on the Radio. The Opinion of the Professionals," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-15, June.
    7. Živa Korošec & Igor Pravst, 2016. "Television food advertising to children in Slovenia: analyses using a large 12-month advertising dataset," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 61(9), pages 1049-1057, December.
    8. Mireia Montaña Blasco & Mònika Jiménez-Morales, 2020. "Soft Drinks and Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Advertising in Spain: Correlation between Nutritional Values and Advertising Discursive Strategies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-12, March.
    9. Steingerdur Olafsdottir & Gabriele Eiben & Hillevi Prell & Sabrina Hense & Lauren Lissner & Staffan Mårild & Lucia Reisch & Christina Berg, 2014. "Young children’s screen habits are associated with consumption of sweetened beverages independently of parental norms," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 59(1), pages 67-75, February.
    10. Victoria Villegas-Navas & Maria-Jose Montero-Simo & Rafael A. Araque-Padilla, 2019. "Investigating the Effects of Non-Branded Foods Placed in Cartoons on Children’s Food Choices through Type of Food, Modality and Age," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-14, December.
    11. Michaela Jackson & Paul Harrison & Boyd Swinburn & Mark Lawrence, 2015. "Marketing ethics in context: the promotion of unhealthy foods and beverages to children," Chapters, in: Handbook on Ethics and Marketing, chapter 17, pages 354-386, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. David Mayer-Foulkes, 2010. "Democratic Economics and Improved Governance: Development Policies for the G20," Working papers DTE 487, CIDE, División de Economía.
    13. Ariadne Beatrice Kapetanaki & Wendy J. Wills & Giada Danesi & Neil H. Spencer, 2019. "Socioeconomic Differences and the Potential Role of Tribes in Young People’s Food and Drink Purchasing Outside School at Lunchtime," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-15, July.
    14. Jennifer L. Harris & Victoria Webb & Shane J. Sacco & Jennifer L. Pomeranz, 2020. "Marketing to Children in Supermarkets: An Opportunity for Public Policy to Improve Children’s Diets," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-20, February.
    15. Thavorncharoensap, Montarat, 2017. "Effectiveness of Obesity Prevention and Control," ADBI Working Papers 654, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    16. Cairns, Georgina & Macdonald, Laura, 2016. "Stakeholder insights on the planning and development of an independent benchmark standard for responsible food marketing," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 109-120.

    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:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:3:p:560-:d:137213. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.