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Parental awareness and attitudes about food advertising to children on Australian television

Morley, Belinda, Chapman, Kathy, Mehta, Kay, King, Lesley, Swinburn, Boyd and Wakefield, Melanie 2008, Parental awareness and attitudes about food advertising to children on Australian television, Australian and New Zealand journal of public health, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 341-347.


Title Parental awareness and attitudes about food advertising to children on Australian television
Author(s) Morley, Belinda
Chapman, Kathy
Mehta, Kay
King, Lesley
Swinburn, Boyd
Wakefield, Melanie
Journal name Australian and New Zealand journal of public health
Volume number 32
Issue number 4
Start page 341
End page 347
Publisher Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
Place of publication Milton, Qld
Publication date 2008-08
ISSN 1326-0200
1753-6405
Keyword(s) children
food advertising
obesity
television
Summary Objective: To assess parents' concern regarding television food advertising to children and the marketing methods used, their awareness of existing regulations and support for strengthening restrictions, and to determine whether these factors differ across sociodemographic groups.

Methods: A randomly selected sample of 400 parents of children under 14 years in all Australian States and Territories completed the cross-sectional telephone survey in March 2007. Data were weighted by metropolitan and regional population proportions.

Results: Parents were concerned about unhealthy food advertising to children (67.3%), use of popular personalities (67.7%), toys (76.4%), and advertising volume (79.7%). Older parents, of high socioeconomic status (SES), with fewer household televisions were more likely to be concerned. Only 47.4% of parents were aware of current regulations and those with a tertiary education were more likely to be aware: odds ratio (OR) 2.96 (95% CI: 1.55-5.65). Parents supported a change from self-regulation (92.8%), a ban on unhealthy food advertising to children (86.8%) and, to a lesser extent, a ban on all food advertising (37.3%).

Conclusions and implications: There was widespread parental concern about food advertising and strong support for tighter restrictions. Given that the existing regulations rely on complaints and awareness is low, particularly among parents with lower education levels, a system of external monitoring and enforcement is essential. Clearly more effective regulations are needed to protect children and parental support for this is high.
Language eng
Field of Research 111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified
Socio Economic Objective 920208 Health Inequalities
HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
Copyright notice ©2008, The Authors
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30017522

Document type: Journal Article
Collection: Public Health Research, Evaluation, and Policy Cluster
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