Use of advertising strategies to target children in sugar-sweetened beverages packaging in Mexico and the nutritional quality of those beverages

摘要

Background A product package can be a powerful marketing tool to persuade and attract consumers at the point-of-sale. Evidence shows that most advertised products have low nutritional quality. Currently, Mexico has incorporated advertising regulations on food and beverage packaging. Objectives To analyze the advertising strategies used to target children on packaging and to assess the nutritional quality of sugar-sweetened beverages available in the Mexican market. Methods Photographs of 2380 beverages available in retail stores in Mexico City from January to March 2017 were analyzed. Beverages were classified as displaying child-directed strategies or nondirected strategies. Nutrition quality was evaluated using the Pan American Health Organization nutrient profile model. Results The use of characters was the most frequent strategy among beverages with child-directed strategies (82.0%). The evaluation of nutrition quality found that 88.0% (P < .001) of sugar-sweetened beverages with child-directed strategies were excessive in free sugars and 56.9% (P < .001) contained other sweeteners. Beverages with more than two advertising strategies have the highest proportion of excessive free sugars (93.4%, 95% CI 82.8-98.6). Conclusions The use of characters and other visual strategies were frequently used in the packaging of sugar-sweetened beverages with child-directed strategies. In addition, these beverages are excessive in free sugars and contain a large number of products with other sweeteners.