Assessing the Longitudinal Relationship Between Peruvian Children’s TV Exposure and Unhealthy Food Consumption

• In Event: Youth, Media, Food Choice, and Obesity

Abstract

Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental studies have shown that heavy television exposure is a risk factor for childhood overweight and obesity. This relationship is most typically attributed to the influence of food advertising. Despite this growing array of studies, one limitation is that these studies have focused almost exclusively on high income countries. It is unclear whether such findings hold true in low or middle countries. To address this gap, this study investigated the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationship between television exposure and unhealthy snack consumption (a risk factor for childhood overweight/obesity) in a sample of Peruvian children aged 6-13 years old (n = 265). Moreover, given that high socioeconomic status (SES) is also a risk factor for overweight in Peru, this study asked whether SES moderated study outcomes. Results indicate that television exposure is indeed cross-sectionally and longitudinally related with unhealthy snack consumption – for each hour of television exposure at baseline, the odds of consuming one or more unhealthy snack per day at follow-up increased by 15%. For children from high SES families, this relationship is even more pronounced with the odds of unhealthy snacking increasing by 44%. These findings justify efforts to help parents manage their children’s television viewing as well as efforts to regulate food advertising in Peru.

Authors

• Peter Busse, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos

• Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, U of Amsterdam

• Ramón Díaz, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos