Globally, consumption of unhealthy food and beverages in childhood plays a major part in the current childhood obesity epidemic and has been linked to metabolic and cardiovascular diseases in later life (Sahoo et al., 2015).ĭrivers of unhealthy food consumption in children are multifaceted and complex. Kaczorowski et al., 2016 World Health Organization, 2015). Health institutions and regulatory bodies define unhealthy food and beverages as those that are high in energy, fat, sugar, and/or salt (Australian Government Department of Health, n.d. This effect is important because globally unhealthy diets remain a leading risk factor for death and disability (GBD 2015 Risk Factors Collaborators, 2016 Kaczorowski et al., 2016) and corporations are predominantly concerned with selling their products, not the health and wellbeing of their consumers.
In children's neighbourhoods, the presence of unhealthy outdoor advertising contributes to the “normalisation” of consumption of these unhealthy products. Overall, the results show promise for the use of Google Street View in the study of obesogenic environments.Ĭhildren are particularly vulnerable to the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages. Specific to outdoor advertising for food and beverages, the results presented here show that children are exposed to a significantly greater number of unhealthy advertising than other advertising, P=0.001, eta-squared statistic (0.45) indicates a large effect size. However, challenges exist with the method because 727 (29.4%) of a total of 2,474 outdoor advertisements that were identified were not able to be categorised because images were unclear, not in English, blocked, or at angles where detail cannot be deciphered. Google Street View allows for centrality of data collection, coding, and storage. The study was conducted within walkable distances from 19 primary and intermediate schools in Auckland, New Zealand, where “walkable” was defined as limited by 800 m road network boundaries, which are equivalent to school buffer boundaries. The implications for using Google Street View in the context of neighbourhood built environment research and grass-roots advocacy are discussed. The aim of this study is to explore issues involved in the use of Google Street View to examine outdoor food and beverage advertising.
The location of outdoor advertising is important in exploring obesogenic environments and children's neighbourhoods. Such marketing to children is a key health determinant because of its impact on dietary preference and food purchasing behaviour. The advertising of unhealthy food and beverages forms an important component of obesogenic environments.
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