Dataset Information

Food and beverage advertising in Hong Kong mass transit railway stations.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To examine the extent and characteristics of food and beverage (F&B) promotion in Hong Kong mass transit railway (MTR) stations in districts with different socioeconomic statuses (SES) and school density.

Design

All advertisements located in the eight selected MTR stations were recorded by photographs or videos, and classified into F&B and non-F&B. The percentage of F&B advertisements and unhealthy F&B being promoted, and common persuasive marketing strategies used in F&B advertisements were compared between low v. high SES districts and school zones v. non-school zones.

Setting

MTR stations in Hong Kong.

Participants

Not applicable.

Results

Of the 8064 advertisements documented, 861 (10·7 %) were F&B advertisements, promoting 1860 F&B items. More than half of the these were unhealthy foods. Stations in high SES districts or school zones tend to advertise more unhealthy items (high v. low SES: 55·8 v. 50·8 %, P = 0·049; school v. non-school: 60·8 v. 49·3 %, P < 0·001). More than one-third of the F&B advertisements recorded did not utilise any of those persuasive marketing techniques that were examined, and using models (13·9 %) or providing discounts (8·8 %) were the two most frequently used non-festival-related persuasive marketing strategies.

Conclusions

Unhealthy F&B advertising in MTR stations is prevalent regardless of SES and school density, and persuasive marketing strategies were infrequently used. These suggest that a ban on unhealthy F&B advertising around schools or the use of persuasive marketing strategies alone would be ineffective in Hong Kong. To align with the recommendation from WHO, a universal ban of junk food advertising should be enacted.

SUBMITTER: Lo SKH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10200667 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Food and beverage advertising in Hong Kong mass transit railway stations.

Lo Steven Ka Ho SKH O Billy Yin Sing BYS Louie Jimmy Chun Yu JCY

Public health nutrition 20200611 14

<h4>Objectives</h4>To examine the extent and characteristics of food and beverage (F&B) promotion in Hong Kong mass transit railway (MTR) stations in districts with different socioeconomic statuses (SES) and school density.<h4>Design</h4>All advertisements located in the eight selected MTR stations were recorded by photographs or videos, and classified into F&B and non-F&B. The percentage of F&B advertisements and unhealthy F&B being promoted, and common persuasive marketing strategies used in F ...[more]

PMID: 32524925

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Dataset Information

Food and beverage advertising in Hong Kong mass transit railway stations.

Objectives

Design

Setting

Participants

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Food and beverage advertising in Hong Kong mass transit railway stations.

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