Final Research Paper Rough Draft

    Obesity has become a nationwide epidemic but has also started to occur with children as well. One in three American children is found to be either overweight or obese. Research has indicated that the increase in childhood obesity can be due to many factors such as: social factors, cultural factors, behavioral factors, or even genetic factors, but there is one additional factor the research fails to point. Advertisements displayed during the child's television time plays an important hand in the cause of childhood obesity. Exposure to unhealthy foods through such advertisements can impact the child's purchase requests and the food choices.

    Advertisements can be a good way to introduce and inform the viewers of the new foods that are available to the public. Because today children live in a media-saturated society, they have a tendency to be found in front of some sort of media in electronic recreation mostly being found sitting in front of the television enabling them to be physically inactive.  To link advertisements to obesity, an analysis of the television content should be executed. Arnas; part of the Cukorova University’s faculty of education in Adana, Turkey conducted a two part study to prove that link. Arnas evaluated a sample of children aging three to eight year old for her analysis. One part of her study consisted of a content analysis of the television session the children watched. The study started with a five week analysis of the content of the television sessions between 07.00 hours and 11.30 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Each weekend different channels were observed and the average time the children spent on those five channels was 121 minutes with television viewing containing 35 minutes worth advertisements. Furthermore, Arnas reported that basically 44.37 percent ads featured were for foods, while 26.05 percent for cleaning supplies, and 9.15 percent for journals or magazines. A grand total of 775 products were introduced in between the show breaks with 347 of those advertisements pertaining to foods. Of those advertised foods 28.35 percent were for candy or chocolate, 23.91 percent were for chips, 12.96 percent were for milk and milk products like cheese and yoghurt, and 11.64% were for breakfast cereals. With this in mind, there were no advertisements, pertaining to the nutritional healthy foods such as vegetables, eggs, fruits, or legumes. Another study on a broader demographic scale between October 2007 and March 2008, was conducted in a collaboration of 13 research groups of the continents: Australia, Asia, Western Europe, South America, and North America. In this study, in addition to the two weekend days being observed, two weekdays were also added between 6:00 hours and 22:00 hours recording for three channels most watched by children. Across all the countries, there was a total of 68,462 advertisements identified in which 18 percent of the ads were for food. Furthermore, of the 18 percent foods, 12 percent of those food ads were for fast food ads, 12 percent were for chocolate or confectionery goods, 9 percent were for low fat dairy products, 8 percent were for full fat airy products, and 8 percent of the ads were for high fat foods and sauces. These advertisement analysis show how much advertisement is directed to the children.

    The purchasing requests of the products that the children saw on television can explain how great of an impact the advertisement had on them. According to Arnas's research, 59.1 percent of the children requested the candies, 50.7 percent requested non-acidic soft drinks such as fruit juice, 33.7 percent of the children requested soft drinks such as Pepsi or Coca Cola, 26.8 percent of them requested milk and or milk related products such cheese or yoghurt, and 5.5 percent of them requested fish and meat products. Another study executed by members of the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management in Copengaen's Business School located in Frederiksberg, Denmark, W Gwozdz and LA Reisch revealed the influence of children advertisements. By utilizing two instruments of measurement; one being choice experiment on children aging from 5 to 10 year old's food knowledge and preferences, and second, a questionnaire on children’s knowledge about and attitudes towards food advertising. These instruments accounted for seven different European countries: Belgium, Italy, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Spain. The choice experiment portion of the study evaluated the children's knowledge and preference for healthy foods and drinks. 10 cards were released containing photos of pairs of one unhealthy food and one healthy food. Right besides each of the two categorized foods, a picture of the child was drawn by an artist without a smile, where the child would draw a happy smile or a sad frown. This signified the child's satisfaction for that particular food. This choice experiment altogether assessed the child's preference and knowledge of the food. The preference was set by drawing the smiley face or frown. Before the start of the experiment, the children were informed as to the definition of a healthy food being something that would not make you sick. Acknowledging this, the child had to draw a second smiley or frown face for the smile of something that won't make them sick and a frown for something that would make them sick. The result of the 334 children tested disclosed the scores of an average of 5.96 out of a maximum of 10 for ‘healthy’ foods and drinks on the knowledge test and 3.82 on the preference test. In short, 92.2 percent of the 334 children could distinguish the healthier food but only 33.2 percent actually preferred the healthier food or drink.


    When advertised such wide range of foods, the interpretation of what the child conceives is the main message of the advertisement plays an important role in determining what they choose to buy. Of the study performed by W Gwozdz and LA Reisch, the second instrument they used to measure the children's knowledge on advertisements. The second instrument used was a children's questionnaire on the response to the advertisements. Again the same system of the smiley face / frown face was used but tweaked by being able to use an expression of the mouth that ranged form 1 (dissatisfaction) to 4 (complete satisfaction). The questionnaire focused on 4 concepts. The first was if the child found advertisement useful. The second dimension asked if the children felt there was credibility in the advertisements and if they ever suspected the meaning of the commercial message. The third critiqued the entertainment factor satisfaction of the advertisement. And the last  but not least, stated the social desirability meaning what do the children do when it is time to eat. The smiley face- frown face system had to be re-tweaked back to the original response of only the smile for agreement and frown for disagreement. The results for this questionnaire were as follows. On the first dimension of the usefulness of the advertisement, the children completely agreed 28.7 percent of the time thinking that the foods advertised are tasty and healthy, 38.6 percent somewhat agreed, 19.1 somewhat disagreed, and 13.3 percent completely disagreed . The children see advertisements as introducing the new foods to them that they may be unaware of. The second dimension of suspicion scored a 35.9 percent full agreement for perceiving that advertised foods are not meant to be consumed, 28.1 somewhat agreed, 19.1 percent somewhat disagreed, and 15.7 completely disagreed. Here the child can somewhat judge that what is being advertised might not be so healthy.  The third dimension of entertainment scored a 16.5 percent that the advertisements were amusing to them, 27.5 percent somewhat agreed, 14.5 somewhat disagreed, and 40.0 disagreed. This is a common thing because usually the child would be waiting for their television show to continue from the periodic commercial breaks. The last factor of social desirability scored a 38.3 percent for proclaiming that the child watches television while eating. 18.6 percent somewhat agreed, 21.9 somewhat disagreed, and 21 percent completely disagreed. According to the statistics, the child does not easily see that the advertisement is rather a persuasive message than informative knowledge for new foods. An advertising executive Alex Bogusky affirms that children are vulnerable and its the adult that "possess a healthy level of judgement and discernment to filter and choose," for the advertised foods (Malefyt annd Morais, pg 126).


    When viewing these advertisements, the way children react in retrospect to the foods presented in the commercials also exhibits the manipulative advertising techniques of the agencies. Arnas's study reveals how the components of the child's behavior changed when exposed to the food advertisements. Over her five week analysis, the results she gathered in response to the food advertisements was that 2.6 percent of the children were non reactive while they shopped with their parents. 13.5 percent of the children identified the foods they saw on television and made commentary about them. 40.3 percent wanted their parents to purchase the foods they saw on the commercial. It even went to an extent that 8.9 percent of the children assessed insisted on buying the product, and when refused started to cry. There is a definite correlation to the behavior exhibited.

    Not only basic food brands take advantage of young consumers, but fast food franchises also don't fall far behind in taking the opportunity. Amy M. Bernhardt, Cara Wilking, Anna M. Adachi-Mejia, Elaina Bergamini, Jill Marijnissen, and James D. Sargent; all researchers from prestigious institutes of the Netherlands and United States; cooperated to conduct a study which observed fast food franchises of McDonald's and Burger King advertisements. Their study was based off of QSRs (Quick Service Restaurant) television advertisements that aired between the one year time period from  July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. The researchers found that of those 92 QSRs classified, 70 percent attributed to McDonald's franchise, and 29 percent attributed to the Burger King franchise. Of all the channels the QSRs had been retrieved, the researchers unfolded that that of the 25,000 advertisements investigated, 79 percent belonged to children television channels : Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney XD, and Nicktoons. When advertised to kids, fast foods chains focused on the children meals. 62 of the QSRs were for McDonald's Happy Meal, 30 were for Burger King's Kids Meal, and only 3 came from Subway's Fresh Fit for Kids. As seen from the statistics, fast food franchises are indeed starting to target the younger consumers more and more.
    Of the fast food franchise advertisements, the way the advertisements are displayed can provide insight of the clever techniques used by the advertisement agencies to draw attention of the children to their foods. The study conducted by Bernhardt and her colleagues is found useful to disclose those techniques. Analyzing the 92 QSRs, the research team uncovered that more visual branding was involved in the children's meals from the fast food franchises. Food packaging in the children advertisement was 88 percent prevalent than the 23 percent in adult advertisement. Toy premiums or giveaways were displayed 69 percent in children advertisements in vast difference of 1 percent for adult advertisements. Movie tie-ins statistically appeared 55 percent of the time vs. 14 percent in children's vs. adult's advertisements. Interestingly, the script of the children's advertisement carried more emphasis on the movie tie-ins while in adult advertisements, the food taste, price, and portion size were prioritized.





This is pretty much my unpolished draft of my final research essay. But I do want to include further in depth analysis of the world of children food advertisements by:
1. Analyzing the historical change if any in the advertisements
2. Looking if there is Government intervention in placing laws or bans on the way children are advertised to
3. Include my own analysis of the impact of food advertisements on children

Any more ideas on what I can talk about in my research paper will be appreciated. Thanks.



  

Week 12: Outline and Overview of Research Essay

                Basically I decided to have a rough outline for my research essay that will pretty much discuss these things

Paragraph 1: Introduction

Paragraph 2: Give an overall general view of the studies and research I gathered conducted  

Paragraph 3: Explain the effects of the food advertisements

Paragraph 4: Compare the differences of an adult food advertisement and children food advertisement

Paragraph 5: Explain historically the change of children food advertisement

Paragraph 6: Give an example of my own analysis of the food advertisement

Paragraph 7: Conclusion.

One in three American children is found to be either overweight or obese. Children’s poor eating habits can be attributed to the environment the child is in and the eating habits of the family in general, but surprisingly another factor that contributed to overweight and obese children is food advertisements on television. The majority of the food advertisements displayed today consist of foods containing junk foods of high calories, sugars, and fats. These types of diets at such a young age are precursors to diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems. There have been many studies conducted that hold that food advertising for children does indeed affect their purchase requests and diets. With the amount of time children spent in front of the television, food industries take advantage and start to make big bucks off the viewers at such a young age. Watching television stations such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Nicktoons, about 79% of the advertisements played through the commercial break aimed at the children. Specifically fast foods composed the 69% of those ads.  The problem with these ads was that they mentioned some sort of toy giveaway or movie-tie-in promotions to hook their viewers. These advertisements included strong branding.

                With the extensive research I conducted, I came to the conclusion that food advertisements do indeed affect the purchase requests but can also influence the behavior of the child. Not having the junk foods requested, the child begins to throw tantrums and fits until the parent has to give in and buy the junk food.