Most breakfast products marketed for children contain more sugar

Experts have spent decades warning us of the high levels of childhood obesity, which has been a disease among recent generations in many parts of the world, Spain nam among. The shift from the traditional Mediterranean diet to the consumption of processed foods with low nutritional value is making a significant contribution, with advertising targeted at children also partly to blame.

According to the breakfast food ads in the Mediterranean countries: Sugar Content Results in ads from 2015 to 2019 produced by UOC Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences professor and researcher Mireia Montaña, whose most breakfast products marketed to children triple. sugar as the ones aimed at adults, influencing their choices for one of the most important foods of the day.

The study, published in the journal Open Access, Children, analyzed 355 ads from 117 different products between 2015 and 2019, and specifically concluded that the average sugar content in the breakfast products surveyed and advertised for adults was 10.25%, with that number rising to an average of 36.20% when it came to child-focused outcomes. In other words, the breakfast options that are encouraged to children through the various communication channels are not as healthy as those aimed at their parents. In fact, if you look at it in terms of the most inspiring children’s breakfast products, you’d think that most Spanish kids start their day with biscuits, which makes up 60% breakfast-related advertising, and chocolate-based. products, such as spreads and drinking chocolate, which make up 25% of ads.

While much of the adult population still adheres to the Mediterranean diet, it is a declining practice among children and young people, increasingly opting to eat processed industrial products in has a lot of sugar for breakfast. “

Mireia Montaña, Professor and Researcher of the UOC Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences

Mònika Jiménez, Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and co-author of another study involving Montaña, entitled Breakfast Food Advertising and Prevention of Obesity: An Analysis of the Nutritional Value of Products and Strategies Discursive used in breakfast. Advertisements from 2015 to 2019 warned of the dangers of persuasive advertising of food products with low nutritional value.

She said: “the less a product links to what would be considered healthy nutritional parameters, the greater the tendency for the advertiser to focus on greed or pleasure and its As Jiménez explained, when communication refers to positive emotions, happiness and the things that can help a product to achieve it, it inspires specific areas of the brain that forces us to eat, a strategy that is “particularly harmful to some audiences, such as young children, as they are particularly susceptible to these types of stimuli. “

The ‘pester power’ effect

As the Montaña study notes, one of the results of advertising campaigns that market breakfast products to children is the increased number of processed foods purchased as breakfast options for children who then eat them with the whole family. This phenomenon is known as’ pester power ‘, which is described as “children’s influence on their parents’ buying habits,” explained Montaña, who is also a researcher with GAME UOC – CNM (Learning, Media and Entertainment; Communications and New Media) group. She said, “Children tend to want things consistently so that their parents end up importing and buying food products that are widely advertised or have some role to play. extrinsic that attracts children but has little nutritional value. “

The study by professors Montaña and Jiménez found that television was the most widely used communication channel to convince consumers to buy these low-quality nutritional products. According to their analysis, television accounted for 39% of breakfast product advertising, with radio coming in at 28%, the internet, 18%, newspapers 6%, magazines, 5%, outdoor advertising, 2% and cinema, 0.56%. “TV is the most effective medium when it comes to persuading children. And when children go to the supermarket with their parents and end up by pushing the options Just when they’re younger, up to preadolescence, “Jiménez pointed out.

Both experts highlighted a number of advertising-related strategies that could be implemented to promote healthy eating habits that prevent childhood obesity. The first is to limit advertising to certain unhealthy foods which, as Montaña emphasized, are “aimed at young children who have not yet developed their powers of critical thinking”. Spain already has a regulatory framework that was introduced 15 years ago as part of the NAOS (Nutrition, Physical Activity and Prevention of Obesity) Strategy, which led to the development of the PAOS Code for the regulation of advertising aimed at young children which would promote childhood obesity.

However, the code only covers those products that are aimed at children only. As Jiménez explained: “Drinking chocolate is a product that is completely suitable for adults and, as such, is not subject to the code. Moreover, these advertisements are not always broadcast only during children’s limited times, which is another way that can be used to get around the regulation. “

In addition to the need for a stricter regulatory framework, a number of other actions could be taken to help reduce childhood obesity, including, “effective nutrition education in general, both for parents and for children ”. “Another policy that may work well is to increase the VAT rate on some products, as has already been done with regard to soft drinks,” suggested a UOC professor, concluding with the reminder that an obese child is likely to develop. into an obese adult.