Childhood obesity and advertisements of food and drinks (AFDs)

Introduction: Eradicating all forms of malnutrition worldwide particularly overweight in children is important in achieving the 2030 agenda on Sustainable Development Goals. Ending childhood obesity (ECHO) need the support of policy implementations for promoting healthy diet and nutrition. The aim of this review is to evaluate the scientific evidence related to the impact of marketing for food and non-alcoholic beverages on children’s eating behaviours, body weight. Methods: Systematic searches of Grey Literature sources, The WHO library database, Medline (PubMed), EMBASE, CENTRAL, CINHAL, the food marketing workgroup website and JSTOR (a marketing and media database) were conducted. Results: Children are exposed to extensive marketing activity through a variety of media and nonbroadcast sources at all stages of their development including: 1-Advertisements, 2- Celebritygenerated content 3- website content. Most of the food items advertised on fell into the category of Noncore- and core- foods. Noncore foods that are relatively high in undesirable nutrients such as high fat, refined sugars, and salt including fast food, Chocolate and candy, Processed and ultraprocessed food(PUPF), Sweet breads/cakes/muffins, high fat biscuits, High fat, salt and sugar(HFSS) foods , pies, and pastries, sweet dairy products pudding, Ice cream, desserts, sugar sweetened drinks and carbonated soft drinks. Core (Food that is recommended to be consumed daily to meet nutrient requirements.) and Miscellaneous foods (Food that is added to flavor meals (e.g., recipe additions); supplements; tea and coffee (plain); fast food (with no noncore foods); or local restaurant andsupermarkets) ; Low sugar and high fiber breakfast cereals (<20 g sugar/100 g and > 5 g dietary fiber/100 g), Fruits and fruit products without added fats, sugars, or salt, vitamin/mineral or other dietary supplements, baby and toddler milk formulae. Conclusion: Children were more likely to prefer and choosing food with popular cartoon characters, and having positive attitudes about some targeted unhealthy food (High calorie, highly processed products that include high amounts of sugar, fat, and salt but are low in nutritional value), drink and restaurant brands. Strong evidence proves that food preferences and purchase requests from children are influenced by TV food advertising.

Keywords:

Noncore foods advertising , Marketing technique , multiple media , Nutritional marketing , Web-based Social Marketing