Food Standards Agency
Friday 19 March 2010
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The Food Standards Agency is today publishing a comprehensive review of research examining the way foods are promoted to children and the possible link between promotional activity and children's eating patterns.
The research review was commissioned by the Agency to examine existing evidence and provide a more in depth understanding of the extent and nature of food promotion to children; how children respond to food promotion; whether it influences their food preferences; and if it does, the extent of that influence compared to other factors and whether the influence applies at category as well as brand level.
The report, 'Does Food Promotion Influence Children? A Systematic Review of the Evidence,' was produced for the Food Standards Agency by Professor Gerard Hastings and his team at the University of Strathclyde Centre for Social Marketing.
An executive summary of the report is attached.
Professor Gerard Hastings said: 'This is a comprehensive and extremely thorough review of evidence on this important and complex issue. It reaches a number of significant conclusions about the link between promotional activities and children's eating behaviour. In particular, it concludes that advertising to children does have an effect on their preferences, purchase behaviour and consumption, and these effects are apparent not just for different brands but also for different types of food.'
Following the publication of Professor Hasting's research review, the Agency intends to draw on the conclusions of his report to inform and promote open public debate, and will be hosting a series of meetings involving a wide range of stakeholders with an interest in or concern about the promotion of food to children.
This will include a meeting of leading academics to discuss the review findings, and a public meeting to debate the issues.
The Agency's Board will then consider the outcomes of the public debate, and discuss the options available.
Full details of the public meeting, including how to apply for tickets, will be released shortly.
Back to topThe was carried out by a multi-disciplinary team from four UK universities (Strathclyde, York, City University London, and Oxford) led by Professor Gerard Hastings and his team at the Centre for Social Marketing at the University of Strathclyde.
A scientific advisory group, comprising representatives from the food and advertising industries and nutrition and consumer behaviour academics, oversaw the research.
29946 potentially relevant pieces of research were initially assessed. Following two stages of relevance and quality assessment, a total of 118 research papers describing a total of 101 studies passed the criteria set for the review. This involved, amongst other things, ensuring that the studies were methodologically robust and had been peer reviewed.
The aim of this research was to review and critically appraise the evidence available on the effect of a range of promotional activities on the eating behaviour of children and draw conclusions on their effect relative to other influences on eating behaviour.
Back to top
Does Food Promotion Influence Children?
A Systematic Review of the Evidence
This review was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency to examine the current research evidence on:
Before addressing these aims, two smaller reviews of related literatures were undertaken to provide some context.
The first examined what we know about marketing and promotion and the effects it might have on children's consumer behaviour.
It shows that promotion is just one part of the complex process of marketing and that measuring its effects on consumer behaviour (and disentangling these from other influences) is notoriously difficult.
Nonetheless, advertisers do it all the time and base enormous budgetary decisions on the resulting data.
The second small review looked at the field of alcohol and tobacco promotion, showing that hard and fast proof about promotional effects will never emerge; rather, judgements have to be made on the balance of probabilities.
It also showed that, in the case of tobacco promotion, these have now been made.
Back to topThe two main reviews on the extent and effects of food promotion used 'systematic' procedures. These are borrowed from medical science, where great care is needed to ensure that particular treatments are really safe and effective, and ensure that every possible source of evidence is identified and rigorously evaluated.
The precise methods of this search and evaluation process are laid down in a detailed protocol, so that other researchers can replicate the review and check the conclusions it reaches. In short, systematic reviews are both rigorous and transparent.
This is the first time that such procedures have been applied to a social phenomenon like food promotion, but it was felt that adopting them would help ensure that the review findings are relevant to and accepted by the many parties with an interest in this issue.
Three methods were used to identify potentially relevant research: an extensive search of electronic databases; searches of the 'grey' (not formally published) literature; and personal contact with key people in the field.
Back to topChildren's food promotion is dominated by television advertising, and the great majority of this promotes the so-called 'Big Four' of pre-sugared breakfast cereals, soft-drinks, confectionary and savoury snacks.
In the last ten years advertising for fast food outlets has rapidly increased, turning the 'Big Four' into the 'Big Five.'
There is some evidence that the dominance of television has recently begun to wane. The importance of strong, global branding reinforces a need for multi-faceted communications combining television with merchandising, 'tie ins' and point of sale activity.
The advertised diet contrasts sharply with that recommended by public health advisors, and themes of fun and fantasy or taste, rather than health and nutrition, are used to promote it to children.
Meanwhile, the recommended diet gets little promotional support.
Back to topThere is plenty of evidence that children notice and enjoy food promotion. However, establishing whether this actually influences them is a complex problem.
The review tackled it by looking at studies that had examined possible effects on what children know about food, their food preferences, their actual food behaviour (both buying and eating), and their health outcomes (eg. obesity or cholesterol levels).
The majority of studies examined food advertising, but a few examined other forms of food promotion.
In terms of nutritional knowledge, food advertising seems to have little influence on children¿s general perceptions of what constitutes a healthy diet, but, in certain contexts, it does have an effect on more specific types of nutritional knowledge.
For example, seeing soft drink and cereal adverts reduced primary aged children's ability to determine correctly whether or not certain products contained real fruit.
The review also found evidence that food promotion influences children's food preferences and their purchase behaviour.
A study of primary school children, for instance, found that exposure to advertising influenced which foods they claimed to like; and another showed that labelling and signage on a vending machine had an effect on what was bought by secondary school pupils.
A number of studies have also shown that food advertising can influence what children eat.
One, for example, showed that advertising influenced a primary class's choice of daily snack at playtime.
The next step, of trying to establish whether or not a link exists between food promotion and diet or obesity, is extremely difficult as it requires research to be done in real world settings.
A number of studies have attempted this by using amount of television viewing as a proxy for exposure to television advertising. They have established a clear link between television viewing and diet, obesity, and cholesterol levels.
It is impossible to say, however, whether this effect is caused by the advertising, the sedentary nature of television viewing or snacking that might take place whilst viewing.
One study resolved this problem by taking a detailed diary of children's viewing habits. This showed that the more food adverts they saw, the more snacks and calories they consumed.
Thus the literature does suggest food promotion is influencing children's diet in a number of ways. This does not amount to proof; as noted above with this kind of research, incontrovertible proof simply isn't attainable.
Nor do all studies point to this conclusion; several have not found an effect. In addition, very few studies have attempted to measure how strong these effects are relative to other factors influencing children's food choices.
Nonetheless, many studies have found clear effects and they have used sophisticated methodologies that make it possible to determine that i) these effects are not just due to chance; ii) they are independent of other factors that may influence diet, such as parents' eating habits or attitudes; and iii) they occur at a brand and category level.
Furthermore, two factors suggest that these findings actually understate the effect that food promotion has on children.
First, the literature focuses principally on television advertising; the cumulative effect of this combined with other forms of promotion and marketing is likely to be significantly greater.
Second, the studies have looked at direct effects on individual children, and understate indirect influences.
For example, promotion for fast food outlets may not only influence the child, but also encourage parents to take them for meals and reinforce the idea that this is a normal and desirable behaviour.
Back to topThis first UK systematic review of the research literature shows that:
1.There is a lot of food advertising to children.
2.The advertised diet is less healthy than the recommended one.
3.Children enjoy and engage with food promotion.
4.Food promotion is having an effect, particularly on children's preferences, purchase behaviour and consumption.
5.This effect is independent of other factors and operates at both a brand and category level.
This does not amount to proof of an effect, but in our view does provide sufficient evidence to conclude that an effect exists.
The debate should now shift to what action is needed, and specifically to how the power of commercial marketing can be used to bring about improvements in young people's eating.
Back to topDr Gerard Hastings is the UK’s first Professor of Social Marketing and is the Director of two academic research units: the Centre for Social Marketing at the University of Strathclyde and the Centre for Tobacco Control Research.
Both research units study the applicability of marketing, theory and practice to social and health problems and the health-damaging consequences of commercial marketing.
Gerard is currently acting as a Special Advisor to House of Commons Select Committee on Health in its enquiry into childhood obesity, is a founding member of the International Network of Tobacco Control Organisations and an expert witness in litigation against the tobacco industry.
In the past he has acted as a Convenor of the Health Education Authority Expert Group on the Mass Media and Social Deprivation and the Department of Health Working Group on Media and Drugs Prevention and a consultant to the World Health Organisation, the OECD and the Home Office
Back to topDr Mike Rayner is Director of the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group which is based within the Department of Public Health of the University of Oxford and which he founded in 1994.
Mike's particular research interests are in public health nutrition.
He has researched into and written widely on the environmental determinants of diets, including the production, retailing, marketing and labelling of food.
He also works closely with closely with voluntary organisations concerned with food and health in the UK and in Europe.
He is currently a trustee of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming and of the National Heart Forum in the UK and is Chair of the Nutrition Expert Group of the European Heart Network.
Back to topDownload pdf
(pdf 934KB) Review of Research on the Effects of Food Promotion to Children Part Two: Appendices Download a pdf of the appendicesDownload pdf
(pdf 923KB) (External) Get Adobe Acrobat reader You may need the free Acrobat Reader to view a pdf
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