![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
The heightened risk of obesity in African American children and research linking exposure to food/beverage advertising to children's weight status led investigators to assess the race of characters featured in a sample of food/beverage commercials aimed at children. Findings show that African American characters are significantly more likely to be featured in commercials for sandwiches (hamburgers/tacos/wraps) and soft drinks than are White characters. African American characters are also significantly less likely to be shown eating at home and more likely to be shown eating in fast food restaurants. Depictions of physical activity align with conventional racial stereotypes. Implications regarding protections for vulnerable consumers against marketing seeming to target them with unhealthy products are discussed.
Notes
1. With mixed evaluations of CFBAI's impact (Powell et al., Citation2010; Warren, Wicks, Wicks, Fosu, & Chung, Citation2007), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) declared in 2010 that food and beverage companies can no longer opt to show healthy lifestyles but must only advertise “better for you” food/beverage choices during children's television programming (Mello, Citation2010).
2. One reason for the higher percentage of advertisements for “healthy” food may be because coders recorded food shown during fast food advertisements individually. For example, milk featured in a McDonald's Happy Meal advertisement was counted individually.
3. Race was coded based on skin color of a character as well as presence of a Spanish accent for Latino/Latina characters. Without a linguistic marker, coders may also have classified Hispanic characters as White or as “unable to code.”