The effects of manipulated exposure to different types of television-style food advertising and young children’s food intake

Childhood presents as a particularly potent time for food preferences to develop and eating habits to establish via exposure to food cues and eating norms in the environment, including media and advertising (Lioret et al., 2020). A healthy balanced diet is essential for physical and psychological well-being (Firth, Gangwisch, Borisini, Wootton & Mayer, 2020; Shan et al., 2020), but is rarely promoted in digital food advertising (Naderer, 2021). Research investigating the effects of different types of food advertising on children’s food intake to assess media-based preventions and interventions for improving children’s diets is lacking (Folkvord, 2020). This thesis includes four studies investigating the effects of specifically-designed, television-style food advertisements on children’s food intake. The advertisements included (1) a healthy food advertisement, (2) an advertisement promoting foods high in sugar, salt and fat (HSSF), (3) an advertisement discouraging the intake of HSSF foods and (4) a non-food toy control advertisement. Studies 1 - 3 were longitudinal studies ranging from a total study duration of nine weeks in Study 1 to seventeen weeks in Studies 2 and 3. Studies 1, 2 and 4 included two conditions, whereby children were exposed to either healthy food advertising exposure or toy control advertising. Study 3 included four conditions, whereby children were either exposed to healthy food advertising, anti-HSSF food advertising, HSSF food advertising or control advertising. Following advertising exposure, children selected and ate foods and drinks from a buffet. In Studies 1 - 3, children selected from a 16-item buffet offering equal numbers of healthy and HSSF food and drink options. Study 4 was a pre-test/post-test design conducted over two weeks. In Study 4, children selected from a 7-item buffet offering exclusively healthy foods, which were fruit, vegetables and whole grain bread. Studies 1 - 3 found no changes in children’s food intake in response to advertising exposure. Study 4 found increases in children’s healthy food intake following healthy food advertising exposure. Children who viewed control advertising in Study 4 decreased their healthy food intake. Findings from Studies 1 - 4 suggest that increasing children’s healthy food intake relies on a combined approach of exclusively healthy food options and healthy food advertising. Parents, caretakers and childcare settings may wish to explore the benefit of providing children with exclusively healthy food options whilst being aware that encouragement, in this case, through media-based healthy food promotion, is required for children to eat the available healthy foods.