¡Descarga Comparing Nutritional Quality in Children's TV: Content vs. Ads y más Apuntes en PDF de Investigación Cualitativa solo en Docsity!
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rffc
Food, Culture & Society
An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
ISSN: 1552-8014 (Print) 1751-7443 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rffc
Healthy Cartoons?
Jeremy L. Korr
To cite this article: Jeremy L. Korr (2008) Healthy Cartoons?, Food, Culture & Society, 11:4, 449-462, DOI: 10.2752/175174408X
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.2752/175174408X
Published online: 29 Apr 2015.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 126
View related articles
Citing articles: 4 View citing articles
- • •••• • •••••••• • ••••••••••• ••••
Chapman University
Healthy Cartoons?
Jeremy L. Korr
A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF FOODS IN CHILDREN’S
ANIMATED TELEVISION PROGRAMS
1997; Hitchings and Moynihan 1998; Borzekowski and Robinson 2001; Kuribayashi et al. 2001; Zuppa et al. 2003; Harrison and Marske 2005; Kaiser Family Foundation 2007). A study by Powell et al. (2007) is representative of this group and was widely reported in the national media. Their nutritional analysis of tens of thousands of food advertisements found that 98 percent of the food commercials viewed by children aged 2 to 11, and 89 percent of those viewed by children aged 12 to 17 were for products high in fat, sugar, or sodium. A second cluster of studies implicates the act of watching television itself. These studies have generally linked children’s television viewing to negative health effects. For example Hancox et al. (2004) found childhood television viewing to be associated with overweight status and raised cholesterol in adulthood; Boynton-Jarret et al. (2003) found that television viewing was inversely associated with adolescents’ fruit and vegetable intake; and Dietz and Gortmaker concluded that “television viewing may cause obesity in at least some children and adolescents” (1985: 807). But these studies each measured the number of hours viewed, and did not examine the content of the programs. In short, studies have repeatedly demonstrated that children’s television is unhealthy because of the poor nutritional content of the advertisements and the inherently passive act of watching television. Yet almost no attention has been directed at the programs themselves. Instead the assumption has been that watching the programs means watching the commercials too. For example Kotz and Story (1994: 1,296) write that “[g]iven the number of food commercials to which children are exposed, we thought it would be of interest to examine current food advertising during children’s television programs and to assess whether the products advertised are consistent with dietary recommendations for good health.” In other words children are inevitably exposed to extensive food advertising as a result of watching children’s programming. Until recently this was a reasonable assumption. But that is not necessarily the case anymore, thanks to the rapid rise of digital video recorders (DVRs), often better known by their brand names such as TiVo. DVRs allow viewers to record programs and watch them later; in the process they may skip the advertisements much more easily than when using previous technology. DVRs are increasingly a mainstream product: 20 percent of American households owned DVRs in September 2007, with the rate exceeding 25 percent in some large cities (Elliott 2007; Stelter 2007). And although only 60 percent of DVR viewers skip any given commercial as of 2007, each individual viewer retains the option of skipping the advertisements more effortlessly than ever before (Semuels 2007). That new empowerment for the television viewer offers a new possibility. If the notorious commercials were to disappear from children’s
Healthy Cartoons? :: 451
vol. 11 :: no. 4 december 08
programming, would the programs still be as unhealthy to watch? Or is it even possible that the programs promote positive nutritional messages? The insistent focus to date on the advertisements alone has sidestepped this prospect. To be sure even positive messages would not negate the effects of the physical passivity of watching television. But parents, nutritionists, broadcasters, and program producers would no doubt be interested if in fact children’s programming were no longer as uniformly negative, in a nutritional context, as prior studies have repeatedly found. Two studies have begun to test this possibility. Warnke and Albrecht (1994) analyzed Saturday morning network children’s programming and advertisements broadcast in 1991 and 1992. Of the foods mentioned or shown in the programs themselves, 32 percent were fruits and vegetables, 14 percent were sweets, and 4 percent were breads and cereals. More recently, after studying twenty hours of Disney Channel programming, Poor (2007) found that the overall set of foods referenced did not meet the dietary recommendations of either the traditional USDA food pyramid or the newer recommendations of the USDA MyPyramid for ages 9 to 13. However, her results also suggest that the nutritional messages within children’s programs may be a significant improvement over the messages found in the commercials. Poor found that 57 percent of the foods referenced within the Disney Channel programs were low in nutritional value. In contrast Kuribayashi et al. (2001), in studying commercials broadcast during Saturday morning children’s programming on four broadcast networks, found that 98 percent of the food commercials contained unhealthy messages, in line with other studies cited above. While the programs may offer more positive nutritional messages than the advertisements, Poor still found that a majority of foods referenced in her programs were of low nutritional value. However, her study focused exclusively on the Disney Channel. Similarly Warnke and Albrecht (1994) studied only Saturday morning programming on ABC, CBS, and NBC, which likely included live-action shows. The children’s programming on other cable channels and over-the-air networks remains unstudied in this context. Furthermore, animated children’s programs have gone almost entirely unexamined; I found no studies concentrating exclusively on the nutritional messages in cartoons, whose writers are unconstrained by regular sets and props, and whose integration of food into programs is thus limited only by their imagination. With this in mind, in 2006 I conducted a content analysis of children’s cartoon programs on three cable and two broadcast networks, focusing specifically on their depiction of food.
452 :: Jeremy L. Korr
Food, Culture & Society
the cable networks produce and air on weekdays (e.g. CBS airs programs from Nickelodeon, and ABC from the Disney Channel). The sample size of thirty-two half-hour segments was consistent with some similar content analyses of television programming (Story and Faulkner 1990 [28 half-hour segments]; Byrd-Bredbenner et al. 2003 [35 half-hour segments]; Tirodkar and Jain 2003 [32 half-hour segments]), though smaller than some others (Warnke and Albrecht 1994 [90 half-hour segments]). I viewed each program at least twice and coded the program content for food references, both visual and verbal. While I based my instrument on those used by Story and Faulkner (1990) and Kaufman (1980), several types of foods and beverages were referenced in 2006 that did not appear in their samples from 1988 and 1977, respectively. In developing their instrument, Story and Faulkner augmented Kaufman’s earlier scheme with additional food categories. Similarly I added new categories to Story and Faulkner’s instrument, such as tea, pizza, and rice, that did not overlap with the categories used in their study. I recorded programs in half-hour increments; 60-minute programs counted as two half-hour segments. A program segment began when the content of the show started and ended when the next program began. The following half-hour program segments were analyzed: Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (two segments), Miguzi (two segments), SpongeBob SquarePants (six segments), Codename: Kids Next Door , Jimmy Neutron (four segments), American Dragon: Jake Long (two segments), Little Einsteins, Ed, Edd, and Eddy (two segments), Fairly Odd Parents , Viewtiful Joe , The Batman , Xiaolin Showdown , Loonatics Unleashed , Pokemon Advanced Battle , Magical Do-Re-Mi (two segments), Bratz , Winx Club (two segments), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My original sample included several live- action programs; because I was interested exclusively in animated programs for this study I discarded those program segments and replaced them with additional animated segments. A trained assistant independently viewed and coded the content of eight segments, representing 25 percent of the sample. Intercoder reliability was calculated using the following formula consistent with previous studies (Kotz and Story 1994; Zuppa et al. 2003): (Number of agreements × 100)/(Number of agreements + number of disagreements) Intercoder reliability was calculated to be 89 percent. For each reference to food within a program I coded the food or drink involved and whether it was a visual reference, verbal reference, or actual eating scene. Defining food was more challenging than anticipated. Most similar studies did not explicitly define the concept. Among those that did Kaufman (1980: 37), using phrasing from federal guidelines, conceptualized
454 :: Jeremy L. Korr
Food, Culture & Society
food as “any article used for food or drink by humans, including chewing gum.” But the stipulation that food be used by humans was insufficient for an analysis of cartoons, where many of the characters are not human. Warnke and Albrecht’s study of Saturday morning programs was more helpful in this respect. While they did not define food directly, they coded for “normal food use” if “an animal took on human characteristics (personification) and consumed a human food,” such as an anthropomorphic talking mouse eating a piece of cheese (1994: 86). Still, no previous content analysis addressed how to deal with, for example, a semianthropomorphic talking sponge. Almost all nutritional analyses of television programming have used samples of live-action shows where it is relatively clear whether the human characters are eating or verbally referencing socially conventional food or not. In contrast potential food references in animated programs like SpongeBob SquarePants, where the main character is a nonhuman talking sponge who sometimes acts human and sometimes acts more like a variety of sea animals, fall into three categories. First, in some instances, characters take on human characteristics and eat human food, such as popcorn. Second, characters take on human characteristics and eat nonhuman food intentionally designed to serve as an analogue to human food, such as Krabby Patty sandwiches which resemble hamburgers. Third, characters eat items that are either clearly not human food, such as grass, or that may serve as human food under certain circumstances, such as seaweed. I initially planned to include only the first of these three categories in my definition of food within animated programs. After preliminary instrument tests I included the second category as well. Items such as Krabby Patties were technically not human foods, but in their visual appearance and social context they were perfect analogues, and young viewers would be likely to perceive them as hamburger sandwiches. For purposes of this study, then, food incorporated not only foods and drinks regularly consumed by humans, but also those consumed by or referenced in the context of nonhuman characters taking on human characteristics, as long as those items were either human foods or visually and socially analogous to human foods. Under this definition only foods shown visually or referenced verbally were coded. Food-shaped items, such as SpongeBob SquarePants’ pineapple-shaped house, were not coded as food references. Nor were “nonsense foods” such as cheese pickles when spoken verbally by characters acting silly. I also excluded figurative speech such as “life is like a bowl of cherries” and “swim like a fish,” as well as items mentioned in a nonfood context such as “pepper spray” and “sea cucumber.” In another contrast to the prime-time programs analyzed in most similar studies, the foods depicted in cartoons were often visually indistinct or ambiguous. In live-action shows foods used are either actual foods or props
Healthy Cartoons? :: 455
vol. 11 :: no. 4 december 08
differentiate effectively between duration and frequency of food appearances. Second, I was unprepared for aggregations of food, and especially for programs whose content was comprised entirely of food. Needless to say the prime-time programs analyzed in previous studies did not feature casts of animated talking foods. One episode in my original sample took place entirely within a cafeteria and a supermarket. Similarly in the original sample’s one episode of Coconut Bill’s Fruit Salad Island , all of the characters were foods, as well as the scenery. Because my analysis was intended to focus on food references, not on food as primary characters or scenery, I discarded both of these episodes and replaced them with two others. My analysis therefore addressed only animated programs in which the primary characters are not foods and in which the programs are not set entirely within food-related environments.
Findings and Discussion : :
TABLE 1. Rates of Occurrences of References to Food in Television Cartoons by Food Category Food Category References (n) Percent of Rate per 30 Total References minutes Sweets 97 26.5 3. Fruits & Vegetables 79 21.6 2. Meats 67 18.3 2. Salty Snacks 32 8.7 1. Low-Nutrient Beverages 27 7.4 0. Other 24 6.6 0. Breads & Cereals 22 6.0 0. Dairy Products 18 4.9 0. Total 366 100.0 11. Note : Based on a sample of thirty-two 30-minute program blocks.
Table 1 shows the rates of occurrences of references to food in programs by food category. It is immediately apparent that eliminating the advertisements does not eliminate all references to foods with poor nutritional content. In the cartoon programs, sweets are referenced more frequently than any other food category, and salty snacks occur at an average of 1.00 reference per 30- minute segment. Fruit and vegetable references occur slightly less than 2. times per 30-minute segment. But Table 1 does not tell the whole story. While categories of less nutritious foods such as sweets and salty snacks are certainly well represented, the overall mix of foods referenced in the cartoon programs contrasts markedly
Healthy Cartoons? :: 457
vol. 11 :: no. 4 december 08
with the mix of foods shown in the commercials during such programs. Researchers for the Kaiser Family Foundation (2007), after studying nearly 9,000 food ads from over 1,600 hours of children’s shows, found that 34 percent of the foods in those ads were for candy and snacks, 28 percents were for cereal, 10 percent were for fast food, 4 percent were for dairy products, 1 percent were for fruit juices, and none were for fruits or vegetables. In contrast, within children’s cartoon programs themselves, I found that 35 percent of the foods referenced visually or verbally were sweets and salty snacks, 6 percent were breads and cereals, 18 percent were meats, 5 percent were dairy products—and 22 percent were fruits and vegetables (including fruit juice). My food categories were defined differently than in the Kaiser study, but even an inexact comparison makes the point. So by skipping the ads during these programs, a parent would bypass a mix of advertised foods that does not include fruits and vegetables at all, in favor of a mix of foods within the shows of which 22 percent are fruits and vegetables. And with purposeful selection of cartoon shows, the mix of foods could be more nutritious. Consider the category of sweets. Table 1 shows 97 references, or 26.5 percent of all food references in the sample. But a disproportionate number of these references—41 out of 97 total—appeared in one series, Jimmy Neutron. Episodes of that show constituted 13 percent of the sample, but accounted for 42 percent of the sweet references. For Jimmy Neutron the rate of occurrence of sweet references per 30 minutes was 10.3; for all other programs the rate was 2.0. Take Jimmy Neutron off the child’s viewing schedule, and the frequency of references to sweets plummets. Similarly Table 1 shows 67 references to meats, or 18.3 percent of all food references. Once again a disproportionate number of these references appeared in one series, SpongeBob SquarePants (and only because I chose to code Krabby Patties as a meat rather than ignoring it as a nonhuman food). Episodes of that show constituted 19 percent of the sample, but accounted for 49 percent of the meat references. For SpongeBob SquarePants the rate of occurrence of meat references per 30 minutes was 5.5; for all other programs the rate was 1.3. Again, drop the program from the viewing schedule and meats almost vanish from the screen. I found myself contemplating the plausibility of a food rating system, just as shows are currently rated for violence, sexuality, and language: perhaps specific series or episodes could be rated “S” for sweets, “M” for meats, and “P” for produce, to guide parents interested in monitoring their children’s nutritional viewing. While eliminating individual series such as Jimmy Neutron or SpongeBob SquarePants from a child’s viewing would also eliminate some references to more nutritious foods, parents might find that sacrifice justified in order to decrease, for example, the average number of sweet references per show from ten to two.
458 :: Jeremy L. Korr
Food, Culture & Society
extensively, food references in the content of children’s programs have been almost entirely neglected. In 1994 Warnke and Albrecht wrote that “[c]hildren watching many hours of Saturday morning television programming are provided with numerous messages about food ... [T]he kinds of foods presented may be important in conveying healthy food choices to children” (p. 94). This observation resonates in the era of digital recording. With the increase in DVR usage children’s television programs might promote positive nutritional messages if children were able to easily skip the advertisements that contain negative nutritional messages. My content analysis indeed found that the programs do contain positive (as well as negative) nutritional messages. While the range of foods referenced in the cartoons may not be ideal, with plenty of sweets and salty snacks, it is still more typical of an actual varied diet than the advertisements during children’s shows which include, for example, no fruits or vegetables at all (Kaiser Family Foundation 2007). There is a danger of overstating the significance of new technologies. Furthermore, young children are themselves unlikely to use a DVR in the way I have suggested. Yet there is real potential here. It is worth repeating that virtually all studies indicting the nutritional content in children’s television have focused at least in part on the advertisements. DVRs represent the first viable opportunity for viewing the programs without the accompanying commercials, and the rapid increase in DVR usage strongly suggests that they are not a passing fad. Proactive parents may want to take note: it appears that supervising children’s viewing of cartoons by using a DVR and skipping the advertisements during playback would change substantially the mix of nutritional messages the children see when watching the programs. And cartoon writers and producers, for their part, might consider more carefully the foods they choose to depict in their programs. With purposeful use of DVRs, television cartoons may yet become a positive tool in informal nutrition education, or at least not nearly as negative as they traditionally have been.
Acknowledgments : : My thanks to Morgan Poor, Charmell Hensley, and Leslie Wasson for their assistance; Warren Belasco and two anonymous readers for their constructive suggestions; and my students at University College of Chapman University for their discussions on the topic.
460 :: Jeremy L. Korr
Food, Culture & Society
References : : Avery, R.J., Mathios, A., Shanahan, J., and Bisogni, C. 1997. Food and Nutrition Messages Communicated through Prime-time Television. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 16: 217–27. Barrientos, T. 2005. Curb Cookie’s Carbs? Crumb! Philadelphia Inquirer , April 15_._ Borzekowski, D.L.G. and Robinson, T.N. 2001. The 30-second Effect: An Experiment Revealing the Impact of Television Commercials on Food Preferences of Preschoolers. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 101: 42–6. Boynton-Jarrett, R., Thomas, T.N., Peterson, K.E., Wiecha, J., Sobol, A.M. and Gortmaker, S.L. 2003. Impact of Television Viewing Patterns on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption among Adolescents. Pediatrics 112: 1,321–6. Byrd-Bredbenner, C., Finckenor, M. and Grasso, D. 2003. Health Related Content in Prime-time Television Programming. Journal of Health Communication 8: 329–41. Byrd-Bredbenner, C., Grasso, D. and Finckenor, M. 2001. Nutrition Messages on Prime-time Television Programs. Topics in Clinical Nutrition 16: 61–72. Dietz, W.H., Jr. and Gortmaker, S.L. 1985. Do We Fatten our Children at the Television Set? Obesity and Television Viewing in Children and Adolescents. Pediatrics 75: 807–12. Elliott, S. 2007. Watching a Show Live, with 72 Hours To Do It. New York Times , May 17. Frey, J. 2005. Casting off Cookies? Washington Post , April 23. Grimes, D. 2005. Cookie Monster, Lighten Up! Sarasota Herald-Tribune , April 14. Hancox, R.J., Milne, B.J. and Poulton, R. 2004. Association between Child and Adolescent Television Viewing and Adult Health: A Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study. Lancet 364: 257–62. Harrison, K. and Marske, A.L. 2005. Nutritional Content of Foods Advertised during the Television Programs Children Watch Most. American Journal of Public Health 95: 1,568–75. Hill, J.M. and Radimer, K.L. 1997. A Content Analysis of Food Advertisements in Television for Australian Children. Australian Journal of Nutrition & Dietetics 54: 174–81. Hitchings, E. and Moynihan, P.J. 1998. The Relationship between Television Food Advertisements Recalled and Actual Foods Consumed by Children. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics 11: 511–17. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2007. Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States. Electronic document, http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7618.cfm. Retrieved December 7, 2007. Kaufman, L. 1980. Prime-time Nutrition. 1980. Journal of Communication 30: 37–46. Kotz, K. and Story, M. 1994. Food Advertisements during Children’s Saturday Morning Television Programming: Are They Consistent with Dietary Recommendations? Journal of the American Dietetic Association 94: 1,296–300. Kuribayashi, A., Roberts, M.C. and Johnson, R.J. 2001. Actual Nutritional Information of Products Advertised to Children and Adults on Saturday. Children’s Health Care 30: 309–22. Nestle, M. 2006. What to Eat. New York: North Point Press. Poor, M. 2007. The Sweet Life of Zach & Cody: A Content Analysis of the Food Related Messages in Disney Television Programming. Unpublished paper. Powell, L.M., Szczypka, G., Chaloupka, F.J. and Braunschweig, C.L. 2007. Nutritional Content of Television Food Advertisements Seen by Children and Adolescents in the United States. Pediatrics 120: 576–83. Semuels, A. 2007. Nielsen Tracks Eyes on TV Ads. Los Angeles Times , June 1. Stelter, B. 2007. A New Ratings System Stirs Up the Fall TV Season. New York Times , October 8. Story, M. and Faulkner, P. 1990. The Prime Time Diet: A Content Analysis of Eating Behavior and Food Messages in Television Program Content and Commercials. American Journal of Public Health 80: 738–40. Tirodkar, M.A. and Jain, A. 2003. Food Messages on African American Television Shows. American Journal of Public Health 93: 439–41. Warnke, M. and Albrecht, J. 1994. Media Portrayal of Foods during Saturday Morning Television Programming and in Children’s Magazines. Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics 18: 85–95.
Healthy Cartoons? :: 461
vol. 11 :: no. 4 december 08
