Five minutes exposure to junk food marketing results in children consuming 130 kcals more per day, trial finds

Publicity to junk meals commercials (relative to non-food) ends in youngsters and adolescents consuming considerably extra energy through the day, no matter the kind of media promoting, in keeping with a randomized crossover trial being introduced on the European Congress on Weight problems (ECO) in Malaga, Spain (11–14 Might).

The examine discovered that 7–15 year-olds uncovered to simply 5 minutes of adverts for meals excessive in saturated fat, sugar, and/or salt (HFSS) consumed on common 130 kcals per day further, which is equal to the energy in two slices of bread.

The well timed analysis is introduced as many international locations throughout Europe and globally are contemplating implementing curbs on unhealthy meals promoting to deal with rising childhood weight problems ranges.

“Our findings provide essential novel info on the extent, nature, and impression of unhealthy meals advertising by way of several types of media on younger folks’s consuming conduct,” mentioned lead writer Professor Emma Boyland from the College of Liverpool within the UK.

“Even brief publicity to the advertising of meals excessive in fats, salt, and sugar can drive extra calorie consumption and probably weight achieve, significantly in younger people who find themselves extra inclined to promoting and whose consuming patterns affect their lifelong well being.”

The causes of weight problems are complicated and influenced by many components. Whereas analysis has highlighted connections between product-based promoting of meals HFSS in audiovisual media on youngsters’s instant and later consumption, little is understood concerning the impression of different types of media together with brand-only (i.e. adverts solely that includes branding components resembling logos, however no meals or beverage merchandise) or audio commercials (e.g., podcasts, radio) in shaping consuming patterns.

Additionally it is unclear whether or not meals promoting results differ by people’ sociodemographic traits, and subsequently the way it could contribute to well being inequalities.

To discover this additional, researchers carried out a randomized crossover trial to quantify the impression of HFSS meals (vs. non-food) advert publicity on youngsters’s instant and later consumption, and to evaluate whether or not this was moderated by both commercial content material (brand-only vs. product), media sort (audio-visual [e.g., TV] vs. visible [some social media posts] vs. audio [podcasts] vs. static [paper billboards]), or sociodemographic traits.

In whole, 240 volunteers between the ages of seven and 15 years from colleges throughout Merseyside, UK, participated within the examine. On two completely different events, individuals had been uncovered to 5 minutes of HFSS meals after which non-food commercials that had been both brand-only or product-based by means of one of many 4 completely different medias.

Researchers then measured youngsters’s subsequent advert libitum consumption of snack and lunch meals together with their top and weight to calculate physique mass index (BMI). Residence postcodes had been used to calculate area-level socioeconomic standing (SES) utilizing the 2019 English Index of A number of Deprivation.

The evaluation discovered that following publicity to HFSS meals adverts, youngsters consumed extra snacks (+58.4 kcals), extra lunch (+72.5 kcals), and extra meals total (snack and lunch mixed (+130.90 kcals) than after publicity to non-food adverts.

Apparently, commercial content material didn’t reasonable this impact, such that brand-only adverts had been as efficient as product adverts in rising consumption.

Whereas neither the kind of media (i.e., audio-visual, visible, audio, static picture) nor socioeconomic standing moderated youngsters’s consumption, the researchers discovered that for each standardized unit improve in BMI rating (zBMI, adjusted for a kid’s age and intercourse), youngsters consumed an extra 17 kcal total.

In keeping with Professor Boyland, “Our outcomes present that unhealthy meals advertising results in sustained will increase in caloric consumption in younger folks at a stage adequate to drive weight achieve over time. This examine is the primary to exhibit that brand-only meals adverts, for which there’s presently no restrictive promoting coverage globally, improve youngsters’s meals consumption. This new information will assist in the design of pressing restrictive meals advertising insurance policies that may shield youngsters’s well being.”

Supplied by
European Affiliation for the Examine of Weight problems