Evaluating the Impact of Chile’s Marketing Regulation of Unhealthy Foods and Beverages: Pre-school and Adolescent Children’s Changes in Exposure to Food Advertising on Television

Citation

Carpentier, Francesca R. Dillman; Correa, Teresa; Reyes, Marcela; & Taillie, Lindsey Smith (2020). Evaluating the Impact of Chile’s Marketing Regulation of Unhealthy Foods and Beverages: Pre-school and Adolescent Children’s Changes in Exposure to Food Advertising on Television. Public Health Nutrition, 23(4), 747-755. PMCID: PMC7060093

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effects of Chile’s 2016 regulation restricting child-directed marketing of products high in energy, saturated fats, sodium, and sugars on reducing children’s exposure to “high-in” television food advertising.
Design: Television use by preschoolers and adolescents was assessed via surveys in the months prior to implementation and a year after implementation. Hours and channels of television use was linked with the amount of high-in food advertising observed in corresponding content analyses of food advertisements from popular broadcast and cable channels to estimate changes in exposure to food ads from these channels.
Setting: Middle-lower and lower-income neighborhoods in Santiago, Chile.
Participants: 879 preschoolers (mothers reporting) and 753 adolescents (self-reporting).
Results: Preschoolers’ and adolescents’ exposure to high-in food advertising in total decreased significantly by an average of 44% and 58%, respectively. Exposure to high-in food advertising with child-directed appeals, such as cartoon characters, decreased by 35% and 52% for preschoolers and adolescents, respectively. Decreases were more pronounced for children who viewed more television. Products high in sugars were the most prevalent among the high-in advertisements seen by children after implementation.
Conclusions: Following Chile’s 2016 child-directed marketing regulation, children’s exposure to high-in food advertising on popular broadcast and cable television decreased significantly but was not eliminated from their viewing. Later stages of the regulation are expected to eliminate the majority of children’s exposure to high-in food advertising from television.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1368980019003355

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2020

Journal Title

Public Health Nutrition

Author(s)

Carpentier, Francesca R. Dillman
Correa, Teresa
Reyes, Marcela
Taillie, Lindsey Smith

Article Type

Regular

PMCID

PMC7060093

Continent/Country

Chile

ORCiD

Taillie - 0000-0002-4555-2525