Download Food advertising on British children`s television: a content

International Journal of Obesity (1998) 22, 206±214
ß 1998 Stockton Press All rights reserved 0307±0565/98 $12.00
Food advertising on British children's television:
a content analysis and experimental study with
nine-year olds
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
Division of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, University of Leeds, UK
OBJECTIVES: The nature and signi®cance of food advertising during children's television was examined in two
studies: a content analysis of advertising (Study 1) and an investigation of the impact of food adverts on the selfperception of overweight children (Study 2).
PARTICIPANTS: Study 1 monitored 91 h of children's broadcasting on four terrestrial and satellite stations in the UK. In
Study 2, 103 children aged 9.75 y viewed two videotaped cartoons containing either food or non-food product
advertisements.
MEASURES: Study 1 used a detailed record of advertisement style and content. Study 2 included a self-report
measure of current state, and measures of self-esteem, dietary restraint, body weight and height.
RESULTS: Half of the 828 adverts were for food products, 60% of which were for breakfast cereals and confectionery/
snacks. Food advertisements used signi®cantly more animation, stories, humour and the promotion of fun/happiness/mood alteration. In Study 2, signi®cant interactions between advertisement type and overweight were observed
on ratings of perceived health and appetite for sweets.
CONCLUSION: While small changes are apparent, advertisements during children's television are still dominated by
those for foods of questionable nutritional value, in a manner designed to engage attention and emotional response.
That overweight children appeared more in¯uenced by their personal enhancement message, suggests the value of
further work identifying who is most in¯uenced and by what features of advertising.
Keywords: Food advertisements; television; children; content analysis; overweight; self-esteem; self-perception
Introduction
The commercialisation of children's television is one
of several concerns raised by child health professionals regarding the impact of television on children's well-being.1,2 Advertising to children is viewed
as exploitative, coercive and extremely prevalent,
with estimates of American children viewing up to
20 000 advertisements per year. Governmental
responses have varied. In Sweden, all advertising
to children aged under 12 y is banned and advertising
around children's programming prohibited.3 However,
in both the UK and USA restrictions on children's
advertising are extremely limited, subject to market
forces and largely voluntary in nature.4±6
Early analysis of the products advertised to children
in the USA revealed that over two thirds were foodrelated.7 Doubts about the nutritional quality of these
food products have been a strong mandate for continuing to investigate the content of children's food
advertising. Recent data from the USA6,8 and the UK9
Correspondence: Dr Andrew J Hill, Division of Psychiatry and
Behavioural Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Leeds,
15 Hyde Terrace, Leeds LS2 9LT, UK.
Received 17 July 1997; revised 16 October 1997; accepted
21 October 1997
show that food advertisements made up 56±63% of all
commercials during peak children's viewing time.
Breakfast cereals, and confectionery and other snack
foods, were the two most heavily advertised categories of food. Moreover, 80±100% of these adverts
were for foods high in fat, sugar or salt. Fatty and
sugary foods, that should make up a minority of our
diet, accounted for 44±76% of all food advertisements
on children's television.
A further reason for this attention lies in the
proposal that television contributes to obesity in
children and adolescents.10 Analysis of large national
samples in the USA showed that during adolescence
the prevalence of obesity increased by 2% for each
additional hour of television viewed.10 A subsequent
analysis of a younger cohort aged 10±15 y, revealed
that the adjusted odds of being overweight were 5.3
times greater for those watching more than ®ve hours
of television per day compared with those watching
for 0±2 hours.11 In addition, the proportion of overweight incidence attributable to excess television
viewing was estimated at 64%.
Food advertising has long been proposed as a
candidate for this association, albeit only one of
several possible effects of television viewing on
food intake, physical activity and metabolic
rate.10,12,13 Not only are foods advertised on television
of generally poor nutritional quality, they are more
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
likely to be chosen by children,14 requested by children and bought by parents.6,15,16 Their popularity and
pester power can be explained at two levels: First,
children's advertisements contain formats and use
methods designed to appeal to children. Animation,
pace, and fantasy are common in food advertisements,
as are premium offers (free gifts) and statements about
product quality.7 In addition, attention grabbing story
themes of violence, con¯ict and achievement are
commonplace.17 Second, children, especially younger
children, are more vulnerable and have the least
cognitive defences against television advertising.6
Below the age of six years, for example, children
confuse advertisements with regular programmes and
have little understanding of their persuasive intent.18
And even though children become more cynical
towards advertising by the age of 8±9 y, they continue
to be in¯uenced.19 The resulting conceptualisation of
the effects of television advertising is of complex
interplay between the way advertisements are constructed and presented, and characteristics of the
viewing child.20 22
Apart from age (and inferred cognitive development), gender and regularity of viewing, few other
characteristics of children have been used to explore
their psychological responses to food advertisements.
Several lines of evidence suggest that children's overweight or obesity may in¯uence their responses. First,
an emphasis on physical attractiveness is a prominent
theme in children's television programmes,23 in
television commercials generally24 and even in those
advertisements broadcast during Saturday morning
cartoons.25 The stereotypes of thinness as attractive
and desirable, and fatness as neither, are well established by the age of 9 y.26 Second, exposure to media
images depicting a thin ideal body shape results in
increased body dissatisfaction in women who are
pregnant, dieting, have unhealthy eating attitudes or
an eating disorder.27±30 Heavier children are both
dissatis®ed with their body weight and shape, and
viewers of the same ideal images.31 Third, television
advertisements that contain stereotypically thin and
attractive women32 or promote dieting and diet products,33 disinhibit dietary restraint and lead to overeating. Dietary restraint is greater in overweight
children34 and subject to disinhibition in young
adolescent girls.35
Fourth, individuals with moderate to low selfesteem may be more susceptible to interpersonal
in¯uence36 and are more likely to subscribe to culturally set ideals.37 Feelings of low self-worth, especially in relation to physical appearance, are found in
some, but not all, overweight children and adolescents.38,39 It has been observed that food advertisements use emotional appeals, linking products with
concepts such as fun, happiness, health and wellbeing, and so marketing personal enhancement.40,41
The strength and immediacy of emotional appeals,
coupled with low body esteem, may make overweight
children particularly vulnerable to commercials that
promote personal enhancement via the consumption
of foods. This vulnerability could be shown as
increased body dissatisfaction or increased appetite
for these products.
The aims of the present study were twofold and
investigated in two stages. The ®rst study was a
content analysis of food advertising on British children's television. This was designed to permit an
extension of the period examined by the National
Food Alliance,9 to include monitoring of recently
available satellite stations in the UK and to enable
comparison with data from the USA. In addition, the
style of advertising was investigated, with a focus
on the use of appeals in food and child-orientated
advertising.
The second study was an experimental investigation of the impact of food advertising on the selfperception of overweight children. It was hypothesised that exposure to food advertisements would
compromise self-perception in the overweight and
increase feelings of body dissatisfaction.
STUDY 1
Methods
Programme monitoring
Children's television was videotaped from four commercial stations broadcasting in the UK. These were
Carlton TV, Yorkshire TV (both regional Independent
Television Network stations), Nickelodeon and the
Cartoon channel (both subscriber-only satellite stations). These recordings were made from Children's
ITV (weekday afternoons, normally 15.30±17.10 h),
ITV weekend morning programmes (07.00±11.00 h),
and weekday afternoons and weekend mornings for
both satellite stations. Viewing ®gures con®rmed
these times as periods where children comprised a
large proportion of the audience (for example, ITV:
children aged 4±15 y made up 44% of the total
audience of CITV and 51% of the weekend audience).
A full week was recorded for each station, with days
selected randomly over a two week period. All
recording was conducted during January and February, 1996.
Advert format and content analysis
Past research was used as the basis for the development of categories used to describe and analyse the
adverts.4,17,40,41 These categories were piloted and
re®ned prior to the study proper. One rater viewed
and analysed the advertisements, recording the presence of the following components:
1. Format. Evaluation was made of the advertisement frequency (number of times shown), animation
207
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
208
(full, partial, none) and pace (duration of advert
divided by the number of camera shots).
2. Presenting characters. The presence of main and
additional characters was noted. This included
whether they were real or animated, human or
animal, male or female, and adult or child.
3. Themes. The presence of the following themes
was noted: magic, fantasy, violence, humour, story
format.
4. Appeals. The presence of the following categories
of appeals were recorded:
Verbal appeals
(a) Assertions: Statements about the potential bene®ts
of the product to the user (for example, ``its fun'').
(b) Attributed qualities: Statements that represent an
opinion about the qualities of the product (for
example, ``tastes great'').
(c) Product properties: Descriptions of the physical
properties of the product which are amenable to
demonstration (for example, shape, size, colour,
texture).
(d) Product composition: Statements about the physical nature of the materials or ingredients.
Product appeals
(a) Competitive: Presented as better than other
brands.
(b) Exaggerated/unrealistic: Presented with either
exaggerated or unrealistic claims about its use or
qualities.
(c) Premium offers: Product has associated free gifts
or material bene®ts.
(d) Value for money: Claims of better product value.
Emotional appeals
(a) Fun/happiness/mood alterations: Suggests that
product consumption will have the immediate
effect of enhancing pleasure and enjoyment, by
either creating positive feelings or removing negative feelings.
(b) Health/nutrition/well-being/beauty: Product usage
is associated with an improvement in overall
health, well-being or beauty.
(c) Action/strength/speed/power: Product consumption will enhance physical performance or energy.
(d) Adventure: Product consumption is associated
with increased adventure and excitement.
(e) Achievement/enablement: Product consumption is
linked with being able to obtain a desired goal.
(f ) Control of self/environment: The product will
assist in achieving control over undesirable
aspects of self or the environment.
(g) Peer acceptance/superiority: Product consumption
is associated with peer acceptance or being better
than one's peers.
Design and data analysis
Reliability of the content analysis was established by
three independent raters viewing 10% (21) of all the
adverts. Cohen's kappa42 was calculated for the
appeal and theme ratings. Only those for humour,
assertions, fun/happiness/mood alteration and adventure fell below 0.7, and all achieved a mean kappa or
above 0.4, regarded as a minimum acceptable level of
reliability.43
A between subject design was used with comparisons of advertisement style and content made
between food and non-food advertisements, and for
child-orientated products and the rest. Statistical analysis was by Mann-Whitney U test and reported as z
scores (correcting for ties). Alpha was set at P < 0.01
to accommodate for the large number of pair-wise
comparisons.
Results
Advertising rates and products
A total of 91.33 h of programming during children's
peak viewing times was monitored. During this time,
828 advertisements were broadcast: 575 (69.4%) on
terrestrial stations and 253 (30.6%) on satellite stations. An average of 16 adverts/h were broadcast on
terrestrial stations, but only 5/h on satellite stations.
Figure 1 summarises the range of products advertised during children's viewing times, both in the
present study and in the NFA studies (averaged over
the two monitoring periods in 1994 and 1995). Food
was the most heavily advertised product in both
studies (49.4 and 62.8%, respectively). The range of
products advertised was relatively narrow and three
product categories, food, toys and entertainment,
accounted for 68 and 76% of all advertisements in
these studies. The remaining categories, toiletries,
household cleaners, and retail and mail order, are
those traditionally targeted at adult women.
The types of food product advertised during children's viewing times are summarised in Table 1,
which includes data from the NFA studies for comparison over a consecutive three year period. The
present study showed that cereals and confectionery/
savoury snacks were the most heavily advertised food
categories, amounting to 60% of food advertisements
overall. Differences between terrestrial and satellite
broadcasting were noted, especially in relation to the
proportion of advertisements for cereals and `other
foods'. This was the result of the higher relative
frequency of advertisements for cereals and confectionery on satellite stations, with one (the Cartoon
channel) broadcasting almost exclusively commercials for these products (94% of monitored output).
Comparison with the NFA data also revealed
changes within the three years of monitoring. In
particular, there was an increase in advertisements
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
209
Figure 1 Products advertised during children's viewing times on British television (1994±1996)
Table 1 Advertised food products on British children's television
Present study (1996)
Cereals
Confectionery/
savoury snacks
Other food
Fast food outlets
NFA
Terrestrial
Satellite
(Combined)
1995
1994
23.6
29.3
44.6
31.2
(30.1)
(29.8)
21.4
39.5
28.5
47.0
40.4
6.7
20.6
3.6
(34.3)
(5.8)
30.6
8.5
11.4
13.3
for foods other than cereals and confectionery. This
was largely attributable to the increase in adverts
for pre-prepared foods, sauces and spreads. These
included ready meals, frozen foods, tinned foods,
sauces and savoury spreads. This `convenience food'
category was not present in the 1994 survey,
accounted for 7.8% of adverts in 1995 and 21.2% in
1996 (present study). This increase would appear to
coincide with a decrease in advertising for fast food
outlets, which fell from 13.3% in 1994, to 5.9% in
1996.
and central characters (main and additional), together
with the themes of magic and fantasy. Consistent with
this, the emotional appeals for child-oriented products
were those of fun, action, adventure and achievement.
In addition, child-oriented product advertisements
were more likely to emphasise the physical properties
of the product (shape, size, etc) and to be presented as
better than market competitors.
Discussion
Advertising content
The differences in style and content of food and nonfood products advertised during children's viewing
times are summarised in Table 2. Food adverts were
signi®cantly more likely to use animation, a story
format, humour and to contain the emotional appeal of
fun/happiness/mood alteration. Advertisements for
non-food products contained signi®cantly more
claims of value for money.
Focusing speci®cally on those products that were
child-orientated, the advertisement categories, cereals,
confectionery and toys were combined and contrasted
with all other advertisements. Table 2 shows marked
differences in the style and content of these commercials. Those for child-oriented products were signi®cantly more frequently repeated, used animation, pace
Food advertisements continue to be the largest single
category of products advertised during British children's television, and are themselves dominated by
those for breakfast cereals and confectionery/snack
foods. Comparisons with surveys conducted by the
National Food Alliance9 revealed some changes in the
pattern of advertising between 1994 and 1996. While
the rate of advertisements broadcast remained steady
(16±17 h on terrestrial television), the advertising of
pre-prepared `convenience foods' increased at the
expense of advertising for fast food outlets and confectionery/snack foods. One possibility is that these
differences were artefacts of seasonal variations in
product promotion, the 1994 monitoring taking place
during the summer and both 1995 and 1996 earlier in
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
210
Table 2 Style and content differences (z scores and signi®cance) between food and non-food
advertisements, and between those for child-oriented products and the rest
Food advertisements
Format
Frequency
Animation
Pace
Main characters
Present
Animated
Child
Additional characters
Present
Animated
Child
Themes
Magic
Fantasy
Violence
Humour
Story
Verbal appeals
Assertions
Attributed qualities
Product properties
Product composition
Product appeals
Competitive
Exaggerated/unrealistic
Premium offers
Value for money
Emotional appeals
Fun/happiness/mood
Health/well-being
Action/strength/speed
Adventure
Achievement/enablement
Control
Peer acceptance/superiority
Child-orientated products
1.12
2.72* Food > Non-food
0.30
4.23** Child > Rest
3.59** Child > Rest
3.95** Child > Rest
1.32
4.00** Food > Non-food
0.05
2.67* Child > Rest
3.43** Child > Rest
3.78** Child > Rest
1.77
1.01
0.55
2.59* Child > Rest
2.73* Child > Rest
3.78** Child > Rest
1.30
2.28
1.26
6.08** Food > Non-food
4.29** Food > Non-food
4.65** Child > Rest
5.77** Child > Rest
1.25
0.09
0.93
1.26
0.43
1.63
1.31
0.43
0.17
3.41** Child > Rest
0.25
1.94
1.01
0.20
4.51** Food < Non-food
2.81* Child > Rest
1.82
1.51
2.01
2.58* Food > Non-food
1.42
0.59
0.02
0.57
1.01
1.69
7.60**
1.59
3.98**
3.86**
2.63*
2.21
2.00
Child > Rest
Child > Rest
Child > Rest
Child > Rest
*P < 0.01.
**P < 0.001.
the year. However, more likely is a true diversi®cation
in product advertising.
It is notable that many of the advertisements for
pre-prepared meals and sauces were broadcast before
or during the tea-time meal, and contained assertions
that the food products were easy to prepare, highly
palatable to children and enjoyable to eat. Time
pressures created by changes in family structure (for
example, single parents, absence of additional family
support) and working habits (both parents working)
are coinciding with children eating at separate times
to their parents, and having different preferences and
menus.44 The formulation and marketing of convenience foods during children's peak viewing times is
therefore understandable. Whether these products
meet criteria of nutritional adequacy is another matter.
Recent diversi®cation of advertising is also apparent in data from the USA. A comparative analysis by
Taras and Gage6 indicates that the category `other
foods' (that is, other than cereals, confectionery, etc)
rose from 1.2% in 1978, to 9.5% in 1988, and to
21.3% in 1995. From a nutritional perspective they
viewed this change as ``irrelevant'' since the proportion of advertised foods that were high in fat, sugar
and salt had barely changed since 1978. From a social
and skills perspective this change may be revealing.
One possibility is that children have the opportunity,
using these products, to prepare their own meals,
something particularly likely if parents are still at
work. But while convenient, this form of meal preparation hardly quali®es as a culinary skill.
The very low rate of advertising on the satellite
channels monitored was unexpected. Not only were
fewer commercials broadcast (5/h), a considerably
smaller range of products was represented. Access to
satellite broadcasting is a relatively recent event in the
UK and, being subscriber-only, still limited in comparison with terrestrial channels, thus attracting fewer
advertisers. Satellite broadcasting to children was not
monitored in the NFA samples so no comparable
British data are available. But ®gures from the USA,
where multi-channel access and pay-TV are well
established, show high rates of advertising (21/h)
that account for 16% of children's total viewing time.6
The investigation of advertisement style and content supported many of the observations in previous
research,17,40,41 the statistical analysis con®rming the
greater use in food advertising of animation, stories,
humour and the promotion of fun/happiness/mood
alteration. Animation has been linked to greater atten-
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
tion in children.40 Furthermore, a story format makes
the advert familiar, easier to follow, more enjoyable
(especially if it uses humour), and increases children's
emotional response.17
The extent of the differences in commercials aimed
primarily at children and those aimed at adults is
apparent in the analysis of child-orientated products
(Table 2). The latter were signi®cantly more likely to
include people (animated or otherwise), pace, animation, magic and fantasy, together with a wide range of
emotional appeals. Moreover, these advertisements
were shown repeatedly. That the contrast between
food and non-food commercials revealed fewer differences in style, is a reminder that food advertisements are not made exclusively for a child audience.
Audience composition ®gures for the period of current
monitoring showed that more than 50% of those
viewing children's television were over 16 y. Indeed,
marketing a product while children and parents are
watching together may be an excellent way of in¯uencing parental purchasing decisions.
A question that remains is whether certain children
are more in¯uenced than others by the techniques in
child-orientated food commercials. As outlined earlier, Study 2 examined the impact of food advertising
on the self-perception of overweight children.
in Study 1, and matched (where possible) for duration,
characters (adults/children, human/non human), and
major themes (for example, magic, fantasy). In addition to the type of product analysed, the other main
difference was that the food advertisements used more
self-concept appeals.
Ratings of current state (``I Feel''). A self-report
measure, comprising a series of 12 rating scales, was
developed to evaluate self-perception before and after
the videotape recordings. Statements represented four
domains: body satisfaction (I feel thin, I feel fat, I feel
healthy), self-esteem (I feel liked by my friends, I feel
good looking, I feel clever), mood (I feel happy, I
feel sad, I feel worried) and appetite (I feel like eating
a lot, I feel like eating sweets, I feel hungry). Each
statement was rated on a nine-point scale that ranged
from ``Not at all'' to ``Very very''. A pictorial scale
was used, with nine circles of increasing shading
representing the degree of agreement. Pilot work
showed this to be both understood and well accepted
by children of this age.
STUDY 2
Other assessments. In addition to measuring the
children's body weight and height, they also completed a pictorial scale assessing body shape preferences, the Self-Perception Pro®le for Children,45 and
the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire.46 Details
and descriptions of their use can be found in Hill et
al34 and Hill and Pallin.47
Methods
Procedure
Participants
One hundred and three children with a mean age of
9.75 y took part in the study. All were in National
Curriculum Year 5 and were drawn from two state
Junior schools in in the north of England. The majority (82%) were white Caucasians and all children
came from a low to middle class social background.
These 51 girls and 52 boys represented 90% of the
school registers for that school group. Of those who
did not take part, all were absent on one or more of the
research days, with no cases of refused parental
consent. In addition to seeking parental consent, full
approval for the study was given by the participating
schools.
Measures
Videotapes. Two 15 min recordings were made on
videotapes, each of an episode of a popular children's
cartoon (Rugrats) with a segment of advertisements
edited in, roughly halfway through. One group of ®ve
advertisements were for food products (breakfast
cereal, confectionery (3), sauce/savoury spread), the
other for non-food products (toiletries, household
cleaner, retail and mail order, publishing, pet products). The adverts were selected from those analysed
The children were divided into groups of 12±15 and
watched the videotapes in a viewing area away from
the classroom. Children watched both videotapes on
two separate days, 3±7 d apart. The presentation order
was counterbalanced and the sessions held at the same
time of day on each occasion. The children completed
the series of ratings of current state (``I Feel'')
immediately before and again after watching the
videos. They were told the scales did not represent a
test and emphasis was placed on not looking at what
others had written. The remaining questionnaires and
physical measurements were made during a third
session at the end of the study.
Design and data analysis
In order to examine the effect of the adverts on the
self-perception of overweight children a Body Mass
Index (BMI, kg/m2) was calculated for each child and
used to identify two groups. The top 10% in BMI (the
10 heaviest children) were the overweight group. As a
group, their mean BMI was above the 97th percentile
by British age-standardised norms.48 A comparison
group of normal weight children was formed by
taking the quartile (25 children) whose BMI was at
or around the median.
A repeated measures design was used with participants taking part in both experimental conditions
211
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
212
(food vs non-food advertisements). Accordingly, the
effects of the two videotapes were analysed by
ANOVA: the between subjects factor was weight
(overweight vs normal weight), and within subjects
factors advertisement type (food vs non-food) and
time (pre vs post-advert).
Results
Participant characteristics
Table 3 shows that the overweight group of children
were both heavier and taller (t(33) ˆ 2.31, P < 0.05)
than the comparison group. Using BMI as an indicator
of their relative overweight, they were 132% heavier
than their age-standardised normative weight.48 There
were also more boys than girls in the overweight
group (7 vs 3; comparison group, 13 vs 12).
The other group comparisons showed the overweight children had a stronger preference to be
thinner (t(33) ˆ 4.09, P < 0.001) and scored signi®cantly lower than the comparison children on satisfaction with physical appearance (t(33) ˆ 3.01, P < 0.01).
While they also tended to have lower self-esteem and
higher dietary restraint, these differences did not reach
statistical signi®cance.
Advert effects
Analysis of the ratings of current state revealed only
one main effect of children's weight. Those in the
overweight group felt signi®cantly more fat than
those in the normal weight group (F1,33) ˆ 26.83,
Table 3 Mean (s.e.m.) weight, height and scores on the measures of self-perception of the overweight and comparison
children
Comparison group
(n ˆ 25)
Weight (kg)
Height (m)
BMI (kg/m2)
Body shape preference
Dietary restraint
Global self-worth
Scholastic competence
Social acceptance
Athletic competence
Physical appearance
Behavioural conduct
*P < 0.05.
**P < 0.01.
***P < 0.001.
BMI ˆ body mass index.
30.7
(2.1)
1.38
(0.01)
16.1
(0.1)
70.04
(0.12)
2.24
(0.13)
3.12
(0.14)
2.85
(0.13)
2.83
(0.15)
2.83
(0.16)
3.20
(0.10)
2.91
(0.13)
Overweight group
(n ˆ10)
44.0***
(2.1)
1.42*
(0.02)
21.6***
(0.4)
71.10***
(0.28)
2.53
(0.29)
2.85
(0.21)
2.68
(0.27)
2.83
(0.29)
2.67
(0.26)
2.62**
(0.17)
2.85
(0.24)
P < 0.001). There were also both general effects of
viewing the videotapes and speci®c effects of the
type of advertisement. Signi®cant main effects of
time were found on ratings of feeling worried
(F(1,33) ˆ 4.32,
P < 0.05)
and
feeling
sad
(F(1,33) ˆ 4.83, P < 0.05), with improvements in
mood in both cases. Furthermore, children rated
themselves as more liked by their friends after the
videos (F(1,33) ˆ 5.22, P < 0.05), showing that they
enjoyed their participation in the study.
While there were no main effects of advert type,
there were signi®cant interactions on two rating
scales, feeling healthy and feeling like eating
sweets. In both cases these were three-way interactions between advertisement type, time and weight
group. Table 4 shows that the overweight children felt
more healthy after watching the food adverts, in
contrast with the opposite effect in both the comparison children and their own response to the non-food
adverts (three-way interaction: F(1,33) ˆ 11.26,
P < 0.01). This same interaction was seen in their
relative decrease in desire to eat sweets (F(1,33) ˆ
5.80, P < 0.05) following the food advertisements.
Discussion
As hypothesised, the self-perception of overweight
children was in¯uenced by viewing food advertisements, and in a different manner to their normal
weight peers. And as anticipated, this effect was
seen in an interaction between the three experimental
variables. However, the small improvement in feeling
healthy and decrease in appetite for sweets that
occurred in response to the food advertisements was
in the opposite direction to that expected. Rather than
expressing their vulnerability to food advertising in a
negative way, these overweight children, unlike their
normal weight peers, appeared to accept and re¯ect
the personal enhancement messages that pervaded
these commercials.
It would not be appropriate to speculate deeply
either on the mechanism of these effects, or their
likely long-term or behavioural consequence. These
were weak and complex effects, resulting from a
single exposure to familiar advertising (it was apparent that most of the children had seen many of the
adverts many times), and derived from a relatively
small sample size. The commercials used as stimuli
differed both in the type of product promoted and in
their use of emotional appeals (higher in the food
adverts), with additional minor differences also likely.
Furthermore, an excess of adipose tissue will not in
itself produce this outcome. There must be mediating
psychological factors. Heavier children have higher
body dissatisfaction, frequently lower self-worth, and
are more likely to diet, associations that are in¯uenced
by gender and age.34,38 Exactly which of these psy-
Food advertising on children's TV
MK Lewis and AJ Hill
Table 4 Mean (s.e.m.) ratings made before and after viewing the food and non-food
advertisements
Non-food adverts
Feel healthy
Overweight
Comparison
Feel like eating sweets
Overweight
Comparison
Feel fat
Overweight
Comparison
Food adverts
Pre-
Post-
Pre-
8.20
(0.39)
7.52
(0.41)
6.70
(0.80)
7.76
(0.38)
5.70
(1.00)
7.48
(0.42)
6.80 A6T6W**
(0.80) A6T*
7.24
(0.48)
6.60
(1.07)
7.44
(0.45)
7.00
(1.04)
7.20
(0.47)
7.20
(1.00)
7.20
(0.50)
6.80 A6T6W*
(1.13)
7.64
(0.44)
3.60
(0.85)
1.36
(0.14)
3.90
(0.80)
1.32
(0.15)
4.30
(0.87)
1.40
(0.15)
3.50 W***
(0.83)
1.56
(0.23)
W ˆ main effect of weight group; A6T ˆ advertisement by
A6T6W ˆ advertisement by time by weight group interaction.
*P < 0.05.
**P < 0.01.
***P < 0.001.
chological features affected the present outcome was
not possible to determine from our limited sample.
There is a clear need to replicate and extend these
®ndings. But the importance of this study lies in the
simple demonstration of an interaction between the
type of advert shown and some feature of the viewer.
Finding that this interplay occurred between overweight viewers of food commercials, in a community
sample of children viewing broadcast television,
should be an incentive to further this line of investigation.
Post-
time
interaction;
of advertised foods,6,8 and epidemiological evidence
has con®rmed the association between viewing time
and childhood obesity,10,11 we know rather less about
who is most in¯uenced and by what features of
advertising. It is reasonable to assume that academic
and therefore public understanding of this falls far
short of that of advertisers themselves. It is important
that this imbalance is remedied and that health promotion for all has as high a priority as commercial
gain.
Acknowledgements
Conclusions
Food advertising is a small part of the in¯uence of the
media on children's lives, not all of which should be
regarded as negative. Nonetheless, food advertising is
an example of directed and coercive in¯uence that is
of little bene®t to its audience. As the AAP Committee on Communication1 concluded, ``advertising food
products to children promotes pro®t rather than
health.'' This criticism is compounded by poor nutritional quality, advertiser's consistent use of slim
participants, the association between television viewing time and obesity, and the con¯ict between television viewing and physical activity. The regular and
continued monitoring of advertising output in different countries across available stations is necessary to
inform and update recommendations to parents, health
bodies, government and the media themselves. The
present study is a small contribution to this process.
Research in this area needs to progress. While
nutritional analyses have articulated the inadequacies
The authors are very grateful to the staff and students
of the participating schools, and to the staff of Media
Services at the University of Leeds for their assistance.
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