Kids hit hard by junk food advertising: new research
Tuesday, 17 April 2018
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 Associate Professor Lisa Smithers from the University of ÐÂÀ˲ÊƱ’s Robinson Research Institute and published in the today, shows 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’ team was able to capture an entire year’s worth of television and ads from one free-to-air commercial TV network in South Australia.
“This is the most robust data we’ve 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,” 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’s peak viewing times, the frequency and duration of "discretionary" (ie, ju