Vlaicu Motrescu

505222
Group B
03.05.2019
Word count Part I: 222 words
Word count Part II: 1013 words
Word count Total: 1235 words

Part I
 The search engine that was used was Google Scholar, as, based on previous experience, it
has proven to be the most reliable search engine and the easiest one to navigate in order
to find more articles on more diverse subjects.
 The keywords selected have been the following:
o "Australia & USA" - the countries the eventual research will focus on
o "television advertising" - as the eventual research aims at tackling the field of
food advertisement in the field of television, this was a necessary keyword
o "food consumption" - as food advertising did not appear to be a correct
formulation, food consumption was chosen in order to yield more scientifically
minded results
o "children" - the target group in terms of age when it comes to the research

 The article was chosen as the source due to being relevant as both a comprehensive basis
of knowledge on television food advertising consumption among children and a starting
point for further inquiry into the effect food advertising has on children. It relies heavily
on data and it places into context the relation between food ads and children's food
choices. It is also a good source for understanding differences between countries when it
comes to attitudes to food ads and the effect food ads have on children's eating habits.

Part II

Introduction

The purpose of the source article(“Television food advertising and the prevalence of childhood
overweight and obesity: a multicountry comparison”) was to determine to what extent does
exposure to TV food advertising determine food consumption behavior that leads to obesity in
children aged 6 to 11 in seven western countries: Italy, Australia, England, Scotland, The
Netherlands, Sweden, and the USA. It did so by introducing data from previous studies on
obesity and on exposure to TV food advertising into a mathematical simulation model. The
results determined that the effect such advertising has on obesity ranges between country to
country, and has an important degree of significance in some countries. The article approaches
cross-national comparison with the nation as the context of the study (Livingstone, 2003), due to
reasons that are explained below

Primary focus

The article primarily seeks to test a hypothesis across the seven nations examined. It pools data
on the examined phenomena, those being the rate of overweightedness/obesity in the nations and
the rate of exposure to TV food advertising. Using the two sets of data, it seeks to establish a
common correlation between them across all nations, and it seeks to test a hypothesis: the
amount of exposure to advertising has an effect on children's food consumption in a nation
(Goris, Petersen, Stamatakis & Veerman, 2009). In the end, it proves this with a moderate
amount of success.

Country selection

The article pays some attention to country selection, although one feels it could have done so
more. The introduction acknowledges that initially the research was based on literature regarding
the USA, but that could not be applied to other countries. Further, in the methodology section, it
explains the choice of countries based on expected higher exposure rates of TV food advertising
(Goris, Petersen, Stamatakis & Veerman, 2009). However, it fails to explain why that criterion
was chosen to select the countries, and it fails to acknowledge how this might affect the study.
For a more comprehensive study, a more diverse set of countries might have been selected. this
could, however, be blamed on the higher availability of data and literature on countries with
higher exposure rates, stated in the methodology section (Goris, Petersen, Stamatakis &
Veerman, 2009). All of the chosen countries are also western, with at least four of them (USA,
Australia, Scotland, and England) having a quite similar culture and media systems that are
strongly related.

Methodological standardization
There is a high degree of methodological standardization present in the study. The gathered data,
divided into two sets (data on overweightedness and obesity as opposed to data on TV food
advertisements exposure) was further divided into categories. The data on weight was divided
into 1 year age categories, where obesity was determined using BMI (kg/square meter) values as
compared to a country's average weight for that age and sex category (Goris, Petersen,
Stamatakis & Veerman, 2009). The data on TV food ads exposure was gathered from available
literature and studies, with direct estimates being used. When this was impossible, data of time
amount dedicated to such ads per hour of TV children programming was utilized as a
replacement (Goris, Petersen, Stamatakis & Veerman, 2009).
In order to compare the final result, the mathematical simulation modeled a scenario for every
country based on a previous USA based study, and the modeled two different scenarios where
exposure to TV food advertisements was removed, while the data on overweight or for obese
people were left in place. In the end, the data from the two scenarios were compared to the initial
scenario prediction, and conclusions were drawn from that (Goris, Petersen, Stamatakis &
Veerman, 2009).

Origin of categories

The origin of categories is undoubtedly etic. It seeks to standardize both the initial and the final
data into potentially neutral measurements, without any room left for national characteristics or
particularities. This can be explained as being caused by multiple potential factors. One of them
is that both sets of initial data are highly standardized on their own: the rate of obesity is
measured by scientist uniformly across most nations, while the rate of TV exposure is measured
in minutes per hour. Another factor which cannot be ignored is that the study was relying on a
mathematical simulation for results, which would require similar categories of data which need
to be standardized in order to function properly.

Data/theory relation

While the data are indeed standardized, the focus of the study is less on a metatheoretical
approach and more on building sets of data compatible with hypothesis testing. Indeed, there is
no lengthy explanation of why the data was structured in the way it was. The mathematical
simulation and its' requirements may again be the cause of that, but one can suspect that the
study was simply not interested in approaching theory when the type of data available initially
was already clearly standardized, as one does not need to reinvent the wheel.

System sensitivity

There is almost no concern with system sensitivity n the article, as the authors opt for a rational
interpretation of the data aimed at a universal approach to public policy, as opposed to a
contextualized interpretation.

Contextualization

there is also a very low amount of concern with contextualization. However, there is an attempt
at it, as the authors of the study try to integrate some sociodemographic information into their
results, but this is never used to bring a new perspective to the obtained data or to explore the
effects such sociodemographic implications might have on the are of research.

Conclusion

The article "Television food advertising and the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity:
a multicountry comparison" is a useful tool for gathering data on the subject of the correlation
between food advertising on TV and children's eating habits. However, it takes a very dry, data-
based approach on cross-national comparison, and due to this, it can only serve as a starting
point for further research, as it does not aim at understanding the different causes for national
differences, instead option for simply registering different degrees of correlation between several
countries.

Bibliography

Livingstone, S. (2003). On the Challenges of Cross-National Comparative Media

Research. European Journal Of Communication, 18(4), 477-500. doi:
10.1177/0267323103018004003

Goris, J., Petersen, S., Stamatakis, E., & Veerman, J. (2009). Television food advertising and the
prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity: a multicountry comparison. Public Health
Nutrition, 13(7), 1003-1012. doi: 10.1017/s1368980009992850