Intensive English Program

Sample Annotated Bibliography

Boyland, E. J., & Halford, J. C. (2013). Television advertising and branding. Effects on eating behaviour and food
preferences in children. Appetite, 62, 236-241. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2012.01.032

Emma Boyland and Jason Halford, in their 2013 article Television advertising and branding. Effects on
eating behaviour and food preferences in children, explore the claim that television viewing and childhood
obesity are strongly correlated. More specifically, they cite sources that state that watching television leads to
greater food consumption amongst children. Their focus seems to be on unhealthy snack foods, which are more
commonly seen in advertisements than healthy food products. These advertisements employ a variety of
strategies to make children desire these foods. These include using animated characters, creating brand loyalty,
and making the item seem like an essential part of a balanced meal. Their conclusion is that the literature
supports the claim that children’s food decisions and caloric intake are influenced by exposure to food
advertising on television.

As this paper contains no original research, its use as background information for the final presentation
is more appropriate. That said, it does contain a wealth of secondary sources, some of which could be useful in
providing additional support for claims about food images on television or in magazines and the increasing rates
of childhood obesity. Several of the referenced studies directly oppose the assertion of Brown et al. that a child’s
weight has no bearing on how much they are influenced by food advertising; on the contrary, some of their
sources say that obese children eat more as a result of seeing food advertisements.

Brown, C. L., Matherne, C. E., Bulik, C. M., Howard, J. B., Ravanbakht, S. N., Skinner, A. C., . . . Perrin, E. M.
(2017). Influence of product placement in children’s movies on children’s snack choices. Appetite, 114,
118-124. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.03.022Jones,

In the 2017 article Influence of product placement in children’s movies on children’s snack choices, the
transdisciplinary Movies and Health Culture study team from (primarily) the University of North Carolina
attempts to demonstrate the link between the snacks that children see in a movie and the children’s snacking
habits and preferences. In order to accomplish this goal, the lead author, Dr. Callie Brown, and her team
conducted a study of children between 9-11 years of age. They had two primary goals: to see if the amount of
“unhealthy food placement” in a movie is correlated with the decisions that children make regarding their snack
food, and to see if the weight of a child has any influence on what and how much (in terms of caloric intake)
children choose to eat.

The children were divided into two groups. One group watched a film that had a high amount of
unhealthy, branded food pictured in the scenes. The other group watched a movie that had half as much
unhealthy food consumption, or at least placement. Additionally, in the movie with more unhealthy food, the
food portions are “oversized,” and characters regularly eat while watching television. The other movie contains
portion sizes that are suitable and reasonable for the sizes of the characters.
 After watching the movie and completing a questionnaire, children were led through a cafeteria, where
the children were presented with a set of choices of food. There were two options for each item of food, and
these options were designed to be similar. In nearly every set of two, one item was from the movie that had
been watched while the other was not. Various control measures were taken to reduce undue outside influence,
including measuring and placing the foods outside of the packaging and saying the full names of the products
rather than displaying promotional logos.

At the conclusion of the study, the team found that children more often chose snack foods that were
prominently displayed in a recently seen movie that contained unhealthy eating practices. These findings are
very similar to the Boyland & Halford article. Both articles conclude that movies that contain obesogenic images,
obesogenic themes and excessive food branding influence the decisions that children make regarding snack food
consumption. This idea is the main theme of the presentation, and the studies in both of these articles are going
to be major pieces of support for this claim.

S. C., Mannino, N., & Green, J. (2010). ‘Like me, want me, buy me, eat me’: relationship-building marketing
communications in children’s magazines. Public Health Nutrition, 13(12), 2111-2118.
doi:10.1017/s1368980010000455

Given the high and rising obesity rates in Australia, Sandra Jones, Nadia Mannino and Julia Green set out
to discover what effect, if any, food advertising has on children. Their 2010 paper, ‘Like me, want me, buy me,
eat me’: relationship-building marketing communications in children’s magazines, examines the diverse
techniques that marketing firms use to appeal to children. These include using celebrities as brand
representatives and incorporating “non-food components,” such as game or toys, into the products.

Their study involved placing children into “friendship pairs,” where the children were asked about their
familiarity with certain magazines, questioned about certain types of advertisement, and shown flash cards that
had a variety of logos or food products on them. A discussion between the two children during the last activity
was recorded and transcribed. The authors then analyse what was said by the children in the context of the
marketing techniques. Among their observations are that children readily recognize brands of unhealthy food,
children associate certain brands with physical and emotional states (happy, healthy, etc.), children value
advertisements far more than articles in magazines, and children focus more on the characters/celebrities in a
promotion than on the product being advertised. They do find that older children are better at determining the
intent of promotional material than younger children, but they are not necessarily influenced to a lesser degree,
especially when the strategies used by the marketers are less transparent. The authors call for stricter
regulations for promotional material targeted at children.

Whereas two of the four sources focused on television, this one differs in that it focuses on advertising
in print media. This is important because it will allow the presentation to say that media in general, and not just
on television, may play a role in snack decisions and consumption among children. This study also contains
transcripts of responses that the children gave during their interviews, which will allow the presentation to
contain more authentic and personal information about children’s reactions to food advertising. All other
sources just summarize findings without saying specifically what children had said during their research.
Kotler, J. A., Schiffman, J. M., & Hanson, K. G. (2012). The Influence of Media Characters on Children’s Food
Choices. Journal of Health Communication, 17(8), 886-898. doi:10.1080/10810730.2011.650822

The Sesame Workshop’s 2012 paper, The influence of media characters on children’s food choices, aims
at showing how effective popular children’s characters, in this case Sesame Street characters, can be in
influencing the choices that children make when eating. Obviously, given the source of the research, Jennifer
Kotler, Jennifer Schiffman, and Katherine Hanson attempt to show how these Sesame Street characters can help
children make healthy choices. This is in contrast with other sources that focused primarily on the negative
impact of using well-known cartoon characters for promotional purposes. They note a wide range of attributes
that can make a child more (or less) susceptible to influence by a children’s character in an advertisement,
including gender, prestige, and athletic ability.

The Sesame Workshop carried out two experiments. In the first, children between 2-6 years of age were
given pictures of pairs of food, with some pairs both being healthy and other being one healthy and one snack
food. Each item in the set of two was associated with either a Sesame Street character or a character that was
unknown to the children. The results showed that children will choose a food matched with a familiar character
if the food products were similar, but their influence was not great enough to get children to select healthier
foods when snack foods are also available, regardless of which character is endorsing either product.

The second experiment was designed to evaluate if the addition of a Sesame Street character could get
children to change their choices from the previous experiment. While the children did try the alternative food
more often if a Sesame Street character promoted it, overall the lure of the famous character was insufficient to
get children to change their minds about what food they would prefer. The second experiment did demonstrate,
however, that a branded character can coax a child to eat more of an item when compared to an unbranded
character.

The overarching result is that children’s characters cannot dissuade children from eating less healthy
food. Moreover, they cannot effectively encourage children to eat healthy food. This article complements other
articles that speculated that children’s characters could potentially be used as a force in promoting healthy
eating – it appears that, according to this study, they cannot. This article is instrumental in showing that
children’s characters should not be used in food advertising and that more regulations are needed.