Effects of Nutrient Content Claims, Sports Celebrity Endorsements and Premium Offers on Pre-Adolescent Children’s Food Preferences: Experimental Research.
Effects of nutrient content claims, sports celebrity endorsements and premium offers on pre-adolescent children’s food preferences: experimental research.
Pediatr Obes. 2013 Apr 29;
Dixon H, Scully M, Niven P, Kelly B, Chapman K, Donovan R, Martin J, Baur LA, Crawford D, Wakefield M
WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT: Food marketing has come under scrutiny for its likely contribution to promoting unhealthy eating and obesity in children. There is limited published evidence regarding the effects of food packaging promotions on children. Nutrient content claims and sports celebrity endorsements on food packs influence adults to prefer energy-dense and nutrient-poor (EDNP) products bearing such promotions, especially among the majority who do not read the nutrition information panel. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: This study experimentally tested pre-adolescent children’s responses to three common food marketing techniques: nutrient content claims, sports celebrity endorsements and premium offers. On-pack nutrient content claims made pre-adolescents more likely to choose EDNP products and increased perceptions of their nutrient content. Sports celebrity endorsements made pre-adolescent boys more likely to choose EDNP products. OBJECTIVES: To assess pre-adolescent children’s responses to common child-oriented front-of-pack food promotions. METHODS: Between-subjects, web-based experiment with four front-of-pack promotion conditions on energy-dense and nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods: no promotion [control]; nutrient content claims; sports celebrity endorsements (male athletes) and premium offers. Participants were 1302 grade 5 and 6 children (mean age 11 years) from Melbourne, Australia. Participants chose their preferred product from a randomly assigned EDNP food pack and comparable healthier food pack then completed detailed product ratings. Child-oriented pack designs with colourful, cartooned graphics, fonts and promotions were used. RESULTS: Compared to the control condition, children were more likely to choose EDNP products featuring nutrient content claims (both genders) and sports celebrity endorsements (boys only). Perceptions of nutritional content were enhanced by nutrient content claims. Effects of promotions on some product ratings (but not choice) were negated when children referred to the nutrition information panel. Premium offers did not enhance children’s product ratings or choice. CONCLUSIONS: Nutrient content claims and sports celebrity endorsements influence pre-adolescent children’s preferences towards EDNP food products displaying them. Policy interventions to reduce the impact of unhealthy food marketing to children should limit the use of these promotions. HubMed – eating
Purging Disorder: A Comparison to Established Eating Disorders with Purging Behaviour.
Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2013 Apr 30;
Koch S, Quadflieg N, Fichter M
This study is part of the larger Christina Barz Study, and it compared consecutively admitted patients with purging disorder (PurD; N?=?225) with consecutively admitted patients with anorexia nervosa binge eating/purging subtype (AN-bp; N?=?503) and bulimia nervosa purging subtype (BN-p; N?=?756). Participants answered self-rating questionnaires on admission, at the end of inpatient treatment, and in a 5-year follow-up. Patients with PurD reported lower severity of general psychopathology than patients with AN-bp and lower severity of eating disorder symptoms than patients with AN-bp and BN-p on admission. Eating disorder symptoms of patients with PurD improved less during the course than of the comparison groups. Diagnostic perseverance was stronger in the PurD group than for patients with AN-bp; mortality was higher than for patients with BN-p. Predictors for better outcome differed for the groups. Our results provide new data about the long-term course of patients with PurD and indicate clinical relevance of the disorder. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association. HubMed – eating
Epidemiology of Esophageal Cancer in Japan and China.
J Epidemiol. 2013 Apr 27;
Lin Y, Totsuka Y, He Y, Kikuchi S, Qiao Y, Ueda J, Wei W, Inoue M, Tanaka H
In preparation for a collaborative multidisciplinary study of the pathogenesis of esophageal cancer, the authors reviewed the published literature to identify similarities and differences between Japan and China in esophageal cancer epidemiology. Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the predominant histologic type, while the incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma remains extremely low in both countries. Numerous epidemiologic studies in both countries show that alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are contributing risk factors for ESCC. There are differences, however, in many aspects of esophageal cancer between Japan and China, including cancer burden, patterns of incidence and mortality, sex ratio of mortality, risk factor profiles, and genetic variants. Overall incidence and mortality rates are higher in China than in Japan, and variation in mortality and incidence patterns is greater in China than in Japan. During the study period (1987-2000), the decline in age-adjusted mortality rates was more apparent in China than in Japan. Risk factor profiles differed between high- and low-incidence areas within China, but not in Japan. The association of smoking and drinking with ESCC risk appears to be weaker in China than in Japan. Genome-wide association studies in China showed that variants in several chromosome regions conferred increased risk, but only genetic variants in alcohol-metabolizing genes were significantly associated with ESCC risk in Japan. A well-designed multidisciplinary epidemiologic study is needed to examine the role of diet and eating habits in ESCC risk. HubMed – eating