Health Promotion International Advance Access published July 4, 2014
Health Promotion International
doi:10.1093/heapro/dau055
# The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
Children’s exposure to food advertising on free-to-air
television: an Asia-Pacific perspective
1
Early Start Research Institute, School of Health and Society, University of Wollongong, Building 41,
Northfields Ave, Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia, 2Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of
Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 3Sydney School of Public Health, University of
Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 4Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Fudan
University, Shanghai, China, 5College of Medicine, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, 6Alma Ata Centre for
Healthy Life and Food, School of Health Sciences, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 7School of Healthcare Sciences,
Faculty of Health Sciences, National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 8Department of
Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, MARA University of Technology, Malaysia,
9
Department of Food and Nutrition, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea and 10Department of
Advertising and Public Relations, Dongguk University, Seoul, South Korea
*Corresponding author. E-mail bkelly@uow.edu.au
SUMMARY
There is an established link between food promotions and
children’s food purchase and consumption. Children in
developing countries may be more vulnerable to food promotions given the relative novelty of advertising in these
markets. This study aimed to determine the scope of television food advertising to children across the Asia-Pacific to
inform policies to restrict this marketing. Six sites were
sampled, including from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and
South Korea. At each site, 192 h of television were recorded
(4 days, 16 h/day, three channels) from May to October
2012. Advertised foods were categorized as core/healthy,
non-core/unhealthy or miscellaneous, and by product type.
Twenty-seven percent of advertisements were for food/beverages, and the most frequently advertised product was
sugar-sweetened drinks. Rates of non-core food advertising
were highest during viewing times most popular with children, when between 3 (South Korea) and 15 (Indonesia)
non-core food advertisements were broadcast each hour.
Children in the Asia-Pacific are exposed to high volumes of
unhealthy food/beverage television advertising. Different
policy arrangements for food advertising are likely to contribute to regional variations in advertising patterns. Cities
with the lowest advertising rates can be identified as exemplars of good policy practice.
Key words: food; marketing; advertising; television
INTRODUCTION
In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO)
endorsed a set of recommendations to guide policy
on restricting the promotion of foods and nonalcoholic beverages high in fat, sugar and/or salt to
children, placing this issue on the international
health agenda (World Health Organization, 2010).
The need to protect children from this marketing is
grounded in evidence from systematic reviews
demonstrating its effects on children’s food preferences, purchases and consumption (Institute of
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BRIDGET KELLY1*, LANA HEBDEN2, LESLEY KING2, YANG XIAO1,
YANG YU3, GENGSHENG HE4, LIANGLI LI4, LINGXIA ZENG5,
HAMAM HADI6, TILAKAVATI KARUPAIAH7, NG SEE HOE7,
MOHD ISMAIL NOOR8, JIHYUN YOON9 and HYOGYOO KIM10
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B. Kelly et al.
advertising for foods and beverages to children
on free-to-air television across cities within the
Asia-Pacific.
METHODS
Six independent research teams from academic
institutions in China (Heilongjiang, Shanghai
and Xi’an); Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Kuala Lumpur
(KL), Malaysia; and Seoul, South Korea agreed to
participate in a regional comparison of food advertising. A study protocol was provided detailing the
methods for data collection and coding to be
undertaken by each research team.
Data samples
Between May and October 2012, 192 h of television broadcasting was recorded by each team,
providing an overall sample of 1152 h. All teams
recorded 4 days of broadcasting (two weekdays
and two weekend days) from 6:00 to 22:00 daily,
for the three channels most popular with children
(,13 years). The team from Xi’an recorded five
channels, as popular channels differed on weekdays and weekends, although the total amount of
recording was the same. Each team recorded
their sample either within the same week or over
successive weeks; in the latter case, the same
days of the week were recorded. Popular channels were identified using different approaches:
KL and Heilongjiang had access to television
audience data; Yogyakarta, Shanxi and Shanghai
administered surveys with a small purposive
sample of school children to identify popular
channels; while Seoul selected the country’s
three national free-to-air channels. National
holidays, large sporting competitions and special
events were excluded, although data from
Heilongjiang included 1 day during the London
Olympic Games. Comparing this day of data to 1
day on the same channel and weekday collected
during a pilot study identified similar rates of
advertisements and type of foods advertised.
Data were recorded from live television broadcasts onto DVDs or hard disks, with the exception of Seoul, where data were obtained from a
commercial media monitoring company.
Data coding
All advertisements were coded for channel, date,
time and product type. A ‘food advertisement’
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Medicine of the National Academies, 2005; Cairns
et al., 2013; ). Children in developing countries may
be more vulnerable to food promotions as they are
less familiar with, and potentially less critical of,
advertising than children in developed countries,
and they may be specifically targeted as an entry
point into developing markets as children have
been seen to be more flexible than their parents
(Hastings et al., 2006).
Food promotion in low- and middle-income
countries (LMIC) has expanded rapidly, with
multi-national soft drink and fast-food companies shifting into Asia-Pacific markets to capitalize on the lack of regulation (Hawkes, 2002;
Consumers International, 2008). Despite this,
there is limited evidence on the extent of food
marketing to children in these countries.
Available evidence indicates that over half of all
television advertisements broadcast during children’s programming in Asia-Pacific countries are
for foods/beverages (Escalante de Cruz et al.,
2004). In one international study, Hong Kong
had one of the highest rates of television food advertising during children’s peak viewing times,
compared with other countries studied (mostly
from Western Europe and North America),
with chocolate and confectionery being the most
frequently advertised products (Kelly et al.,
2010). In 2009, South Korean children were
exposed to 2.6 food advertisements per day,
the greatest proportion of which were for beverages and fast-foods (Han et al., 2013). In 2006,
the products most frequently advertised during
children’s peak viewing times on Malaysian television were snack foods, ice-cream and biscuits
(Karupaiah et al., 2008).
Restricting unhealthy food marketing to children has been identified as a cost-effective strategy for reducing the prevalence of childhood
obesity (Swinburn et al., 2004; Magnus et al.,
2009). Epidemiological evidence indicates that
while the prevalence of overweight and obesity is
lower in many developing countries across the
Asia-Pacific region, the rate of increase in prevalence in the previous few decades is much higher
than that of developed countries (Asia Pacific
Cohort Studies Collaboration, 2007; Chong et al.,
2014). Yet few LMIC (and indeed developed
countries) have regulations to limit children’s
exposure to this form of marketing. Monitoring
the nature and extent of television food advertising in the Asia-Pacific is essential to provide information on the degree of this issue to support
policy action. This study aimed to compare
Food advertising on Asian Pacific free-to-air television
Reliability
For each site, a 1 h sample of television data was
randomly selected. Each advertisement within
the samples was re-coded by YX according to
whether the advertisement was for a food or
non-food, and for major food group. Coding was
compared between research teams and YX using
Cohen’s Kappa statistic. Agreement for food/
non-food advertisements was 1.0 for all sites.
Agreement for food coding was 1.0 for all
sites except Xi’an (0.82, representing almost
perfect agreement) and Seoul (0.65, substantial
agreement). As more than one person coded the
data from Heilongjiang, Yogyakarta and KL,
inter-rater reliability within research teams was
assessed in the same way, with percentage agreement calculated to estimate coding consistency.
Percentage agreement was 100% for food/nonfood and food coding for all teams, except
Yogyakarta (88% for food coding).
Data analysis
Coded data sets were cleaned and merged. The
primary outcome was the extent of food advertising and advertising for major food groups.
Extent of food advertising was measured as the
mean number (rate) of advertisements per hour,
per channel. To test whether the extent of advertising differed across sites, Zero-Inflated Poisson
(ZIP) regression models were computed using
SAS version 9.2 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC,
USA), with advertisement type as the predictor
variable. Chi-square tests on the difference in the
log likelihood of the full and null ZIP models
were computed, and indicated that each of the
full ZIP models which included site as the explanatory variable were a significantly better fit
for the data compared with the null ZIP models
that only included the predictor variable (advertisement type). Differences in the extent of advertising for major food groups and the use of
persuasive marketing techniques between peak
and non-peak viewing times were examined using
independent samples t-tests. In all instances, statistical significance was accepted at the level of
a ¼ 0.05.
RESULTS
Extent of food/beverage advertising
Overall, 37 789 advertisements were identified,
of which 27% were for food (25% for retail
products, 2% for restaurants, 0% for supermarkets). The overall rate of advertising was 33
Table 1: Peak commercial television viewing times for children aged ,13 years of age, by site
Research team
Weekday peak viewing times (h/day)
Weekend peak viewing times (h/day)
Shanghai, China
Heilongjiang, China
Shanxi, China
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Seoul, South Korea
17:00–20:00 (3)
17:00–20:00 (3)
17:00–20:00 (3)
14:00–17:00 (3)
19:00–22:00 (3)
17:00–22:00 (5)
17:00–20:00 (3)
17:00–20:00 (3)
17:00–20:00 (3)
10:00–12:00 (2)
15:00–16:00 and 19:00– 22:00 (4)
9:00–11:00 and 18:00–20:00 (4)
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included any advertisement for a retail food/
beverage product, supermarket or restaurant.
For each food advertisement, the main product
advertised was identified. In cases where equal
attention was given to two or more products, the
first product shown was identified. Food products
were coded into 3 major food groups (core/
healthy, non-core/unhealthy or miscellaneous)
and 37 minor food product codes based on
those used in earlier research (Kelly et al., 2010),
but adapted to the Asia-Pacific food supply
(Table 3). Advertisements were also coded as
broadcast during children’s peak or non-peak
viewing times (Table 1). For sites with data on
audience viewing times (Heilongjiang, KL and
Seoul), peak viewing times were defined as
periods when 25% of the maximum child audience for the day was viewing (Kelly et al., 2010).
For Yogyakarta, Shanxi and Shanghai, peak
times were determined from surveys with children
identifying times most commonly spent watching
television. Discussions between the three Chinese
teams led to the adoption of common peak
viewing times. Use of promotional characters
(celebrities, branded characters, licensed characters and sports figures) and premium offers (giveaways, competitions, vouchers and rebates) in
food advertisements were recorded.
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B. Kelly et al.
Table 2: Rate of all advertising and food advertising, by site
City, country
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Shanghai, China
Xi’an, China
Heilongjiang, China
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Seoul, South Korea
Wald Chi-square
Rate of advertisements (ads/h/channel)
Ratio core: non-core
Total
Food
Non-core food
Core food
Misc. food
60.8
31.4
28.8
28.5
25.3
22.0
93.22*
20.6
8.3
7.3
5.3
5.2
5.0
157.96*
16.7
5.0
3.6
4.5
3.8
2.3
276.10*
0.6
2.7
2.7
0.4
0.5
1.4
92.49*
3.4
0.6
1.0
0.5
0.9
1.3
91.09*
1:27.8
1:1.9
1:1.3
1:11.3
1:7.6
1:1.6
*P , 0.0001.
Types of foods advertised
Food advertisements promoted predominantly
non-core foods, with a rate of six non-core food
advertisements per hour overall, compared with
one advertisement per hour for core foods and
for miscellaneous foods (Table 2). For every one
core food advertisement, there were between
1.3 (Xi’an) and 27.8 (Yogyakarta) non-core food
advertisements shown. Overall, the most frequently advertised food product types were sugarsweetened drinks (19%), high fat dairy and low
fat dairy (9% each), baby and toddler formula
(7%) and ice cream (6%). In an average hour of
television broadcasting, a child may be exposed
to between one (KL, Seoul and Xi’an) and
four (Yogyakarta) advertisements for sugarsweetened drinks (Table 3).
Children’s peak versus non-peak viewing times
The rate of total food advertising, and advertising for non-core and core foods, was higher
during children’s peak viewing times for all
sites, except Yogyakarta (Figure 1). Excluding
Yogyakarta, non-core food advertising was 11
(KL) to 310% (Heilongjiang) higher during peak
times compared with non-peak times. This compares with advertising for core foods being 19
(Shanghai) to 133% (KL) higher during peak,
compared with non-peak times (Figure 1).
Persuasive marketing
Overall, 9% of food advertisements contained
premium offers and 34% contained promotional
characters. On average, almost one food advertisement per hour contained premium offers,
while three contained promotional characters.
Most advertisements containing persuasive techniques were for non-core products (0.6 non-core
food ads per hour using premium offers and 2.1
non-core ads per hour using promotional characters versus 0.1 and 0.4 core food ads using these
techniques, respectively). The rate of food advertisements containing promotional characters
was highest during children’s peak viewing times
(4.2 versus 2.7 ads per hour in non-peak times;
t360 ¼ 3.47, P ¼ 0.001), while rates of food advertisements containing premium offers were similar
between peak and non-peak times (1.0 versus 0.7;
t1136 ¼ 1.12, P ¼ 0.2) (Table 4).
DISCUSSION
This study provides a detailed comparison of television food advertising patterns across six cities in
the Asia-Pacific and highlights the predominance
of non-core food promotions. On average, a child
watching television may be exposed to one unhealthy food/beverage advertisement every 4 min
in Yogyakarta, 12 min in Shanghai, 13 min in
Heilongjiang, 16 min in KL, 17 min in Xi’an
and every 26 min in Seoul. This compares with
children seeing one advertisement promoting a
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advertisements per hour. Table 2 shows differences in the rates of total advertising, food advertising and food group advertising across sites.
Food was the most frequently promoted product
for all sites, with the exception of KL, where
channel promotions and toiletries were most frequently advertised. The overall rate of food advertising was nine food advertisements per hour.
Yogyakarta had the highest rate of food advertising, at 21 food advertisements per hour; almost
three- to four-fold higher than rates at other sites
(Table 2).
Food advertising on Asian Pacific free-to-air television
Page 5 of 9
Table 3: Frequency of advertisements for food and beverage types, by site
Rate of advertisements (ads/h/channel)
Shanghai
Heilongjiang
Kuala
Lumpur
Xi’an
Seoul
16.7
4.3
3.6
5.0
1.6
0.5
4.5
1.8
0.2
3.8
0.7
0.0
3.6
0.7
0.3
2.3
0.9
0.0
2.5
1.6
0.0
0.3
0.0
0.0
0.3
0.6
0.4
0.3
0.0
0.1
1.2
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
1.0
1.0
0.5
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.3
0.0
0.5
0.0
0.3
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.0
1.0
0.1
0.1
0.3
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.1
0.7
0.4
0.1
0.0
0.4
0.0
0.2
1.3
0.0
0.6
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.6
0.4
0.1
0.0
2.7
0.0
0.0
1.7
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.5
0.1
0.1
0.3
2.7
0.2
0.0
0.0
1.4
0.3
0.1
0.1
0.0
0.0
1.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.0
2.0
0.0
0.6
0.0
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
3.4
1.6
1.2
0.6
0.6
0.0
0.5
0.4
0.0
0.9
0.3
0.1
1.0
0.4
0.0
1.3
0.1
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.4
0.0
0.2
Continued
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Non-core food
Sugar-sweetened drinks
Full cream milks and yoghurts (.3 g fat/100 g) and
cheese (.15 g fat/100 g) and alternatives
Ice cream, iced confection and desserts
Sweet breads/cakes/muffins/buns/biscuits, glutinous
rice balls/cakes/pudding, high fat savoury biscuits,
pies, pastries
Meat and meat alternatives processed/preserved
in salt
Flavoured/fried instant rice and noodle products
Chocolate and candy
High sugar and/or low fibre breakfast cereals
(.20 g sugars /100 g or ,5 g dietary fibre/100 g)
Fruit juice/drinks (,98% fruit)
Fast food (not only healthier options advertised)
Sweet snack foods—jelly, sugar-coated dried fruits or
nuts, nut/seed based bars and slices, sweet rice bars,
and tinned fruit in syrup
Savoury snack foods (added salt or fat)— chips, dried
spicy peas, fruit chips, savoury crisps, extruded
snacks, popcorn (exclude plain), salted or coated
nuts, other fried snacks
High fat/salt meals—frozen, packaged meals
(.6 g saturated fat/serve, .900 mg sodium /serve)
Other high fat/salt products—high fat savoury sauces
(.10 g fat/100), soups (.2 g fat/100 g; all dehydrated)
Alcohol
Core food
Water
Breads, rice and rice products without added fat,
sugar or salt
Baby foods (exclude milk formulae)
Milks and yoghurts (3 g fat/100 g), cheese
(15 g fat/100 g) and alternatives
Fruits and fruit products without added fats, sugars
or salt
Healthy snacks—,600 kJ/serve, ,3 g saturated
fat/serve and ,200 mg sodium/serve
Oils high in mono- or polyunsaturated fats, and low
fat sauces (,10 g fat/100 g)
Vegetables and vegetable products without added
fats, sugars or salt
Low sugar, high fibre breakfast cereals
(,20 g sugar /100 g and .5 g fibre /100 g)
Meat and meat alternatives
Low fat/salt meals—meals (6 g saturated fat/serve,
900 mg sodium/serve), soups (,2 g fat/100 g,
exclude dehydrated), sandwiches, mixed salads
Miscellaneous food/food-related
Baby and toddler milk formulae
Recipe additions (including soup cubes, oils,
dried herbs and seasonings)
Tea and coffee
Vitamin/mineral or other dietary supplements,
and sugar-free chewing gum
Yogyakarta
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B. Kelly et al.
Table 3: Continued
Rate of advertisements (ads/h/channel)
Yogyakarta
Fast food (only healthier options advertised)
Fast-food restaurant (no foods or beverages
advertised)
Local restaurant
Supermarkets (only core and healthy foods
advertised)
Supermarkets (not only core and healthy foods
advertised)
Supermarkets (no foods or beverages advertised)
Shanghai
Heilongjiang
Kuala
Lumpur
Xi’an
Seoul
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
healthy food/beverage every 22 min in Shanghai
and Xi’an, 43 min in Seoul, 100 min in Yogyakarta,
120 min in KL and every 150 min in Heilongjiang.
The most frequently advertised product across
all sites was sugar-sweetened drinks. Sugar-sweetened drinks have been identified as a probable
causal factor in weight gain and obesity (World
Health Organization, 2003). This association has
been specifically identified in Asian populations
(Li et al., 2010). One survey of adolescents in
China found that sugar-sweetened drink consumption had a dose– response association with
obesity risk, with those having one bottle a day
50% more likely, and those consuming more
than two bottles per day 70% more likely, to be
overweight or obese (Li et al., 2010).
The next most frequently advertised foods
were low fat dairy, high fat dairy, baby and
toddler formula and ice-cream. This contrasts
with findings from other countries, which indicate the most frequently promoted foods to
be sugar-sweetened breakfast cereals, savoury
snacks, fast food, confectionery and soft drinks
(Cairns et al., 2013). However, low rates of advertising for vegetables and fruit were identified in
the previous study (comprising 2% of food
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Fig. 1: Rate of advertising of major food groups during children’s peak and non-peak viewing times, by site.
Korean singing group ‘Super Junior’
(unhealthy fast food ad)
4.0 (48)
0.8 (88)
0.4 (100)
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Heilongjiang,
China
Seoul, South
Korea
0.3 (25)
0.8 (63)
Xi’an, China
‘Get a super junior T-shirt for . . . .if you purchase fried
chicken more than . . .’ (unhealthy fast food ad)
Olympic athlete Liu Xi (sugary drink ad)
2.3 (77)
1.5 (85)
Branded character – Mat Kool (ice cream ad)
2.8 (60)
1.1 (95)
Yogyakarta,
Indonesia
‘Win a trip to Disneyland and $4999 cash prize’
(low fat milk ad)
‘Win a chance to party at Old Trafford, United Kingdom
and meet with Manchester United players . . . 12 Grand
Prizes to be won’ (unhealthy savoury snack ad)
Rebate for meal (unhealthy fast food ad)
4.0 (97)
Branded character – The Prince from the
‘kingdom of magic’ (sweet biscuit ad)
Undefeated World Boxing Boxing
Association champion Chris John
(sugar-sweetened drink ad)
Mickey Mouse (low fat milk ad)
3.1 (68)
‘Win a trip to Beijing Bird’s Nest and be the title sponsor
of a skateboard match’ (sugar-sweetened drink ad)
1000 chances to win an iPad (unhealthy meat ad)
1.2 (97)
Shanghai, China
Example
Rate/h/channel
(% for non-core
food)
Example
Rate/h/channel
(% for non-core
food)
Premium offers
City, country
Table 4: Rate of food advertisements containing persuasive marketing techniques, by site
Page 7 of 9
advertisements), which is similar to other
research.
Yogyakarta had extremely high rates of total
food and non-core food advertising. While the
rates of advertising in other cities were relatively
lower, these were comparable to earlier studies
assessing food advertising exposures. In one
study comparing television advertising patterns
across 13 cities in Australasia, North and South
America, and Eastern and Western Europe
in 2009, the rate of non-core food advertising
during children’s peak viewing times was between two (Brazil) and six (Germany) per hour
(Kelly et al., 2010). In the current study, after
excludingYogyakarta, there was an average of
four non-core food advertisements per hour
during peak viewing times.
Seoul had the lowest rate of non-core food advertising. Further, persuasive marketing techniques in Seoul were more frequently used in
advertisements for core and miscellaneous
foods. These advertising patterns can be at least
partially attributed to pioneering advertising regulations in South Korea. The Special Act on
Safety Management of Children’s Dietary Life,
introduced in 2010, restricts advertisements for
energy dense, nutrient poor ‘children’s foods’
from being advertised on television between
17:00 and 19:00 daily and during children’s programs outside of these times (Korean Ministry of
Food and Drug Safety, 2010; Kim et al., 2013).
The impact of this regulation on advertising
exposures has been assessed by comparing gross
ratings points (GRPs) for food advertisements
before and after the introduction of the Act
(Kim et al., 2013), where GRPs represent the size
of the audience exposed to an advertisement
within a given period. GRPs for energy dense,
nutrient poor foods decreased by 82% during
restricted broadcast times and by 50% at other
times after the introduction of the regulations
(Kim et al., 2013). In comparison, in other
countries where industry self-regulations have
been enacted on responsible marketing to children, independent studies have demonstrated
that these policies have had no impact on children’s exposure to unhealthy food advertising
on television, including in countries such as
Australia (Hebden et al., 2011; King et al., 2011),
Canada (Potvin Kent et al., 2012) and the USA
(Kunkel et al., 2009).
Other than differing regulatory provisions,
other explanations for the variations in advertising patterns observed between cities may
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Promotional characters
Food advertising on Asian Pacific free-to-air television
Page 8 of 9
B. Kelly et al.
compared with audience data collected for one
province to confirm validity. Peak viewing times
were identified as earlier in the afternoon in
Yogyakarta, while for all other sites peak times
were in the evening. It is possible that viewing
patterns differ between countries; however, there
may have been differences in the classification of
peak times based on the methods used to define
these periods. Study strengths included the consistency in data coding both within and between
sites. All teams piloted this protocol to ensure
coding consistency and to verify that the food
classification system was relevant to the local
food supply.
CONCLUSION
Overall, children in the Asia-Pacific are exposed
to high volumes of unhealthy food advertising
on television, particularly for sugar-sweetened
drinks. Findings from the current study guide
regulatory specifications, including the need to
restrict unhealthy food advertising during times
when the highest numbers of children are watching television, and the use of promotional characters in advertisements promoting unhealthy
products. Evidence from this and other studies
(Kim et al., 2013) highlight the positive impact
that meaningful government regulations can have
on reducing children’s exposure to unhealthy food
marketing, as demonstrated by comparatively low
advertising rates for these foods in Seoul. Hence,
food marketing restrictions recently introduced in
South Korea can provide good practice guidelines
for adoption in other jurisdictions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Professor Louise Baur
and Associate Professor Mu Li from The
University of Sydney for their assistance with
recruitment of the research groups. We also
acknowledge the role of Kathy Chapman from
Cancer Council New South Wales in developing
earlier versions of the survey protocol, used
in other research examining food marketing to children. We would like to thank Esti
Nurwanti and Dewi Astiti from Alma Ata
Center for Healthy Life and Food (ACHEAF),
Yogyakarta for their role in data collection and
management.
Downloaded from http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Sydney on January 13, 2015
include the extent of Westernization of the
food supply (Harris, 2002), the use of television
as the primary entertainment media (Chong
et al., 2014) and population density (with large
populations attracting greater industry attention). There may also be potential differences
arising from the use different data collection
methods in Seoul, where advertising data were
purchased from a commercial media monitoring
company, compared with the method of physically recording television broadcasting used by
other cities.
The major objective of food advertising regulations should be to limit the impact of marketing
of unhealthy foods on children (World Health
Organization, 2010), whereby ‘impact’ refers
to both the extent of exposure to advertising, as
indicated by the advertising rate; and the power
of advertising, including the use of persuasive marketing techniques (World Health Organization,
2012). In this study, the rate of advertising of
non-core foods/beverages was highest during children’s peak viewing times for all sites, with the exception of Yogyakarta. Therefore, total exposures
to non-core food advertising, as a function of the
total child audience and the advertising rate, were
highest during these times. Further, food advertisements containing promotional characters were
most prevalent during peak viewing times. Our
findings suggest that regulations that limit the rate
of non-core food advertising during peak viewing
times, and the use of persuasive techniques during
these times would greatly reduce the impact of
unhealthy food marketing to children.
Also of concern are the high rates of advertising for baby and toddler formulae, which were
frequently advertised products in China, KL
and Yogyakarta. The WHO International Code
of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes precludes all forms of advertising for breast milk
substitutes, and all of the countries included in
this study are signatories to this code (UNICEF,
2012). The findings support the need for systems
to monitor and enforce existing marketing
codes to limit the promotion of breast milk substitutes, and the need to introduce and enforce
penalties for non-compliance (Soekarjo and
Zehner, 2011).
Limitations of the study include the different
methods for selecting popular channels and peak
viewing times, including the use of purposive
surveys of children in three of the study areas.
However in China, survey data for children to
identify popular channels/viewing times were
Food advertising on Asian Pacific free-to-air television
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