Research Article
Evaluating Industry Self-Regulation of Food Marketing to Children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.01.027Get rights and content

Introduction

Concern has grown about the role of televised food advertising as a contributor to childhood obesity. In response, the food industry adopted a program of self-regulation, with participating companies pledging to limit child-targeted advertising to healthier products. The implicit promise of the industry initiative is a significant improvement in the overall nutritional quality of foods marketed to children, thereby negating the need for governmental regulation to accomplish that objective. This study assesses the efficacy of industry self-regulation by comparing advertising content on children’s TV programs before and after self-regulation was implemented.

Methods

A systematic content analysis of food advertisements (n=625 in 2007, n=354 in 2013) appearing in children’s TV programs on the most popular cable and broadcast channels was conducted.

Results

All analyses were conducted in 2014. Findings indicated that no significant improvement in the overall nutritional quality of foods marketed to children has been achieved since industry self-regulation was adopted. In 2013, 80.5% of all foods advertised to children on TV were for products in the poorest nutritional category, and thus pose high risk for contributing to obesity.

Conclusions

The lack of significant improvement in the nutritional quality of food marketed to children is likely a result of the weak nutritional standards for defining healthy foods employed by industry, and because a substantial proportion of child-oriented food marketers do not participate in self-regulation. The lack of success achieved by self-regulation indicates that other policy actions are needed to effectively reduce children’s exposure to obesogenic food advertising.

Introduction

Childhood obesity is a major threat to public health.1 Numerous factors are responsible for the epidemic, and children’s exposure to advertising for nutritionally poor foods is a significant contributor to the problem.2 The average child sees more than 5,500 televised food ads annually,3 leading to a range of adverse effects on eating habits.2, 4, 5 Most food commercials targeted at children promote low-nutrient, high-calorie products, such as sugared cereals, salted snacks, and fast foods.6, 7, 8 By contrast, genuinely healthy foods that should be part of a regular diet are rarely advertised to children.9, 10

A 2006 IOM report triggered ongoing public debate about the issue,11, 12 warning that unhealthy food advertising puts child health at risk.2 The IOM recommended that industry should improve their practices, noting,

If voluntary efforts related to advertising during children’s television programming are unsuccessful in shifting the emphasis away from high-calorie and low-nutrient foods and beverages to the advertising of healthful foods and beverages, Congress should enact legislation mandating the shift on both broadcast and cable television.2

The IOM report also recommended that licensed charactersa popular with children should be used solely to promote healthy products.2 Many children form parasocial bonds with favorite characters13; thus, character-based advertising is a uniquely powerful form of commercial persuasion.14, 15

The food and beverage industry responded by creating the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), a self-regulatory program.16 Participants in the CFBAI, which include 17 of the nation’s largest food companies, promise that child-directed ads will feature only healthier foods that meet nutritional standards specified by each company. All companies also commit to limit the use of licensed characters to advertising for healthy foods.

Industry self-regulation did not become fully functional until 2009. To evaluate the efficacy of the CFBAI, our research compares a sample of child-targeted food ads aired in 2007, before the CFBAI was announced, with an equivalent sample of 2013 food advertising, 4 years after industry self-regulation was fully implemented.

The study has two key foci. First, it assesses whether each company fulfilled all elements of its CFBAI pledge. Products advertised in child-targeted commercials were linked to their parent corporation and assessed for conformity with company-specific nutritional standards. For example, the Kellogg Company17 pledged that all child-targeted advertising will contain a maximum per serving of 200 calories, 2 g saturated fat/0 g trans fat, 230 mg sodium, and 12 g added sugar (Table 1). All ads for Kellogg products in the samples of advertising are identified and assessed for conformity with Kellogg’s specific nutrition criteria. That process is then repeated for all participating companies, each of which adopted varying pledge standards.

A second and more critical issue to examine is the impact of self-regulation on the overall environment of food advertising to children. Not all food companies participate in the CFBAI, meaning the initiative’s efforts could be diluted by advertising for less-healthy foods from non-participating companies. It is also possible that lax standards for defining healthy foods could undercut the impact of self-regulation. Accordingly, the study independently evaluates the nutritional quality of the overall marketplace of food advertising directed at children and compares the patterns observed once the initiative was in effect with previous levels.

To assess nutritional quality of advertised foods, the study uses measures based upon a U.S. DHHS food rating system, which is publicized widely as part of the agency’s Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity and Nutrition (WE CAN!) initiative.18

Section snippets

Study Sample

The study examines food advertising in children’s programs on broadcast and cable TV. Over a period of 10 weeks (February 1–April 15), one episode of each regularly scheduled children’s program that aired between 7:00am and 10:00pm on each targeted channel was recorded for analysis. The examined channels included five broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CW) and two cable networks (Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon) that deliver large volumes of children’s programming. Children’s programs were

Results

One clear difference between food advertising in 2007 and 2013 involved the frequency of commercials. The rate at which food ads appeared during children’s programming dropped from 8.5 per hour in 2007 to 6.4 per hour in 2013 (Z=–4.5, p<0.001), a decline of roughly 25% (Table 2). Similarly, the average amount of time devoted to food advertising dropped from 3:29 minutes per hour to 2:21 minutes per hour over this period (Z=–3.73, p<0.001). Despite this reduction in volume, food commercials

Discussion

In response to public concern, the food industry implemented a program of self-regulation known as the CFBAI. In evaluating the efficacy of industry self-regulation, this study shows two highly dissonant findings. First, the CFBAI has completely fulfilled all specified commitments. The data confirm that all companies met their applicable pledges by advertising only products that meet nutritional guidelines stipulated by the parent corporation. Similarly, companies also fulfilled their pledge to

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Healthy Eating Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the first author.

No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.

References (30)

  • V. Kraak et al.

    Industry progress to market a healthful diet to American children and adolescents

    Am J Prev Med

    (2011)
  • K. Montgomery et al.

    Interactive food and beverage marketing: targeting adolescents in the digital age

    J Adolesc Health

    (2009)
  • C.L. Ogden et al.

    Prevalence of obesity and trends in body mass index among U.S. children and adolescents, 1999-2010

    JAMA

    (2012)
  • Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity?

    (2006)
  • Holt D, Ippolito P, Desrochers D, Kelley C. Children’s exposure to TV advertising in 1977 and 2004: Information for the...
  • Cairns G, Angus K, Hastings G. The extent, nature, and effects of food promotion to children: A review of the evidence...
  • J.L. Harris et al.

    A crisis in the marketplace: how food marketing contributes to childhood obesity and what can be done

    Annu Rev Public Health

    (2009)
  • M. Gamble et al.

    A quarter century of TV food advertising targeted at children

    Am J Health Behav

    (1999)
  • M. Story et al.

    Food advertising and marketing directed at children and adolescents in the U.S

    Int J Behav Nutr Phy

    (2004)
  • L.M. Powell et al.

    Nutritional content of television food advertising seen by children and adolescents in the United States

    Pediatrics

    (2007)
  • W. Gantz et al.

    Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States

    (2007)
  • C. Stitt et al.

    Food advertising during children’s television programming on broadcast and cable channels

    Health Commun

    (2008)
  • C.L. Barry et al.

    News media framing of childhood obesity in the United States from 2000 to 2009

    Pediatrics

    (2011)
  • J. Klein et al.

    Childhood obesity: the new tobacco

    Health Aff

    (2010)
  • C. Hoffner

    Parasocial and Online Social Relationships

  • Cited by (68)

    • TV Advertising, Corporate Power, and Latino Health Disparities

      2022, American Journal of Preventive Medicine
    • How policy actors assert authority in the governance of food marketing policies

      2022, Food Policy
      Citation Excerpt :

      Restricting unhealthy food marketing has been identified as an effective strategy to reduce the exposure and power of food marketing to children (Organisation, 2021; WHO. Set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children., 2012; Kraak et al., 2006). Despite such evidence, the progress in implementing comprehensive food marketing policies has been slow(Taillie et al., 2019), with many countries still opting for industry self-regulation, which has been widely shown to be ineffective in reducing exposure to food marketing(Taillie et al., 2019; Kunkel et al., 2015). Furthermore, current regulations do not specifically target UPF but focus on foods with certain nutrient attributes such as high salt, sugar and fat.

    • Obesity, public health ethics and the nanny state

      2021, Ethics, Medicine and Public Health
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text