Content Analysis of Food Advertisements on TV Channels in Turkey

Introduction: Childhood obesity is an important public health problem and rising. The spread of unhealthy food advertisements (ads) in media may contribute to obesity. This study aims to perform a content analysis of food ads on TV channels in Turkey. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 6 TV channels with the highest ratings according to the Television Monitoring Surveys Joint Stock Company 2016 data. Primetime (PT, 20:00-23:00 and off prime time (OPT, 17:00-19:59) time slots were taken into consideration for data collection. The data was collected between October 13-19, 2017. For standardization, food groupings were based on previously published literature and the Turkey Specific Food and Nutrition Guide. Frequencies and percentages are given for descriptive statistics and chi-square test was used to compare categorical variables. Results: A total of 2740 food ads were evaluated. 1.732 (63.2%) of them were found to be unhealthy, only 124 (4.5%) were healthy and 884 (32.3%) were other types of food ads. There were more unhealthy food ads in the OPT period (65.5%) than the PT period (60.2%) (p=0.005). The most commonly advertised unhealthy food ads were cakes, cookies, and biscuits. Unhealthy drink ads were coke, carbonated beverages, and aroma sodas. Conclusion: Two of 3 food ads on Turkish TVs are unhealthy. Any child will be exposed to an average of 96 unhealthy food ads per week in case of only 2 hours of TV viewing per day.