General, our outcomes present that whereas kids in Toronto had been uncovered to increased ranges of meals promoting than youngsters and had been uncovered to a myriad of promoting strategies in 2019, teenagers’ publicity to unhealthy meals promoting and advertising and marketing strategies was greater than 30% increased from the kids.
Variations in youngster and adolescent publicity
This examine revealed that each kids and adolescents had been extremely uncovered to meals commercials on tv in Toronto in 2019. Though it was hypothesized that kids could be uncovered to fewer meals and beverage commercials in comparison with adolescents, our outcomes confirmed the alternative. Kids aged 211 had been uncovered to 2234 meals commercials on the stations studied, or 6.1 commercials per day, whereas adolescents aged 1217 noticed 27% fewer commercials and had been uncovered to 1631.7 meals commercials, or 4.5 commercials per day. That is in line with earlier analysis in Canada that confirmed increased charges of meals promoting in packages aimed toward kids [8, 29]. Related developments have been seen in the US, the place a examine discovered that in 2017, youngsters noticed a median of 9.4 adverts per day, whereas kids noticed a median of 10 adverts per day [30]. The noticed variations in publicity between age teams could partly be as a result of adjustments in media consumption amongst adolescents, with much less time spent watching tv amongst 12- to 17-year-olds in comparison with 2- to 11-year-olds. [10]. One other examine in Canada discovered that there was a lower in youngsters’ publicity to meals promoting on TV between Might 2011 and Might 2016 [19]. Given the declining TV viewing amongst youngsters, the meals and beverage {industry} can redirect its promoting {dollars} from tv to digital media, the place youngsters are ubiquitous, with a purpose to attain this market [31, 32].
Each kids and adolescents had been uncovered to related meals classes. Eating places, snacks, breakfast meals, sweets and chocolate characteristic prominently, whereas publicity to different classes similar to fruit and greens or water was considerably decrease. Eating places (quick meals and non-fast meals) represented the most important supply of promoting publicity in comparison with different meals classes for each kids and adolescents, with kids uncovered to 1145.5 adverts (greater than 3 adverts/day) whereas youngsters in 813.6 adverts (2.2 adverts/day) in 2019. This excessive degree of restaurant promoting is of concern from a public well being perspective, as experimental analysis has proven that publicity to quick meals promoting triggers reward-related neural pathways amongst youngsters and contributes to the general increased consumption of quick meals meals [33]. Consuming quick meals has additionally been linked to poor well being outcomes in kids and adolescents, similar to weight achieve/weight problems, elevated danger of heart problems, insulin resistance and diabetes [34]. Moreover, analysis carried out in the UK has proven that consuming at full-service eating places contributes to extra calorie consumption, with many meals from a majority of these eating places exceeding the calorie rely of meals from quick meals eating places. [35]. Excessive ranges of restaurant promoting on tv might be hindered by authorities coverage. To this point, just one restaurant producer participates in self-regulation Kids’s Meals and Beverage Promoting Initiative (CAI) [21]. Authorities laws proscribing the advertising and marketing of unhealthy meals to kids and youngsters could be equal right here to making use of to all food and drinks corporations, together with all quick meals and non-fast meals eating places.
Though kids had been uncovered to extra meals adverts total, youngsters had been uncovered to 36.4% extra unhealthy meals adverts in 2019. On condition that unhealthy meals promoting has been causally linked to weight loss plan, that is regarding [36]. Adolescent diets are characterised by excessive consumption of sugar, fats and salt and low consumption of fruit and greens [37, 38]. Such outcomes increase the query of whether or not focusing advertising and marketing restrictions solely on kids is enough when adolescents are clearly bombarded with unhealthy meals commercials on tv. Right here, the UK has taken the lead as TV promoting restrictions apply to kids underneath 16 [39]. Our outcomes counsel that Canada ought to critically contemplate following this instance.
Publicity of youngsters and adolescents to advertising and marketing strategies
Promoting impression is a perform of each publicity and efficiency (ie, the design and execution of the promoting message). [40]. Kids and teenagers in Toronto had been extremely uncovered to a variety of highly effective advertising and marketing strategies in 2019, though total, teenagers had increased publicity (>30%) to all advertising and marketing strategies examined in comparison with their youthful counterparts. Extra particularly, the very best publicity in each age teams was for calls to motion, well being appeals, use of child-appealing merchandise, and child-appealing particular results. Advertisements seen by kids and teenagers additionally featured youngster and teenage actors and child-appealing themes and characters, similar to cartoons. Kids and youngsters noticed 340 and 463 exposures respectively to character rays in TV meals promoting and 83 and 111 exposures respectively to celeb endorsements in 2019. Each of those strategies have been proven to be extremely enticing to each kids and youngsters [41]. The frequent inclusion of such advertising and marketing strategies in kids’s tv promoting means that Kids’s Meals and Beverage Promoting Initiative (CAI) doesn’t successfully forestall using most advertising and marketing strategies supposed to draw kids, and far stays to be finished to scale back kids’s publicity to those strategies. The truth that youngsters had been uncovered to those advertising and marketing strategies at a better degree than kids means that they’re being closely focused. The meals advertising and marketing literature is evolving to acknowledge that adolescents’ means to know and acknowledge persuasive appeals could not present enough protection in opposition to the dangerous results of unhealthy meals commercials. [42]. Once more, governments ought to contemplate extending safety measures to this age group.
Coverage implications
General, our outcomes additional strengthen earlier proof displaying that self-regulatory insurance policies don’t successfully cut back kids’s publicity to unhealthy meals promoting on tv or the energy of such advertising and marketing [40, 43, 44]. CAI has been criticized up to now for low participation charges, poor definition of promoting, excessive viewers thresholds to set off engagements and weak dietary standards [8, 44]. In the summertime of 2021, a brand new industry-wide voluntary meals code, the Meals and Beverage Promoting Code has been introduced and is because of be applied by the summer season of 2023 [45]. This new code applies to kids underneath the age of 13 and is a poor imitation of it Quebec Client Safety Act which restricts any business promoting aimed toward kids underneath the age of 13. Particularly, this new {industry} code exempts many types of media and doesn’t explicitly describe how focusing on of youngsters will probably be decided, present dietary standards for in-home and out-of-home meals, or embody monetary penalties for violations. With a rising physique of literature pointing to the ineffectiveness of self-regulation of meals advertising and marketing to kids, Invoice C-252, lately launched within the Canadian federal Home of Commons, is a extra viable possibility given the breadth of media protection. to guard kids from unhealthy meals advertising and marketing in media and environments. This invoice will prohibit the advertising and marketing of unhealthy meals to kids underneath 13 in varied media and youngsters’s settings, in addition to using advertising and marketing strategies generally used to focus on kids [24]. The outcomes of this examine can be utilized as baseline information to evaluate the effectiveness of potential new Canadian {industry} laws and code.
The outcomes of this examine additionally counsel the necessity to embody adolescents in meals advertising and marketing coverage efforts. Whereas kids are widely known as a precedence age group for restrictions on meals advertising and marketing, our outcomes point out the inadequacy of rules focusing on kids completely [46, 47]. The degrees of publicity noticed amongst adolescents on this examine signify a big hole in present self-regulatory insurance policies and the brand new proposed Canadian Invoice C-252. As described earlier, adolescents face a novel set of circumstances given their neurodevelopmental stage, rising independence and monetary assets, and higher susceptibility to look affect. [18, 33]. To make up for misplaced earnings from restrictions on meals advertising and marketing to kids, corporations could flip to focusing on youngsters by designing meals adverts that capitalize on these distinctive developmental vulnerabilities [48]. New Invoice C-252 proposes a assessment 5 years after implementation of impression of latest laws on unhealthy meals promoting aimed toward youngsters aged 1316 [24]. Continued monitoring of each kids’s and adolescents’ publicity to tv meals promoting is warranted to tell future coverage efforts in Canada.
