Análise das propagandas de alimentos veiculadas em canais de televisão fechada direcionada ao público infantil segundo o guia alimentar para a população brasileira e legislação vigente

Abstract

Introduction: Studies have shown that broadcast media is considered an active and prevailingcompany in the children's age, and that this can greatly influence the habits of purchase and consumption of food by the Brazilian families, and may be associated with increased prevalence of overweight and childhood obesity.Objective: To analyze the food product advertisements target to children in 6 (six) TV stations by signature of Brazil, classifying them according to the Food Guide for the Brazilian Population and current legislation. Methods: This was an observational cross-sectional, descriptive study with collection of primary data obtained through recording setting of 6 (six) most watched pay-TV stations targeted to childrenin the country, at different times and days of the week, in July 2015. The commercials were recorded by HDTV decoder system, assisted, ranked and analyzed by type of product advertised and suitability of food and drinks according to the Food Guide and current legislation.Results162 hours of recorded programming were assisted and there were 1618 commercial inserts, most of them referred to toys (22.15%), followed by food and beverages (5.61%), applications for electronic devices (5.58%) and entertainment/events (5.56%). The Fisher's exact test was performed to compare the proportion of foods and beverages commercials in relation to the sum of the trade of other products or services in each studied station, and there was a statistically significant difference (p<0,001), so it may be concluded that there were fewer food commercials compared to other types. Among the food items, sweets (candy) and packet snacks were announced only by one station, three stations broadcasted commercials of Fast Food networks, and only one station announced built foods into its schedule, but this was the only one that ran brown rice commercials. The food items most announced among all the assessed stations were the ultraprocessed foods, and no commercial inserting fresh food was observed (p<0,001). The item "Yogurt/brew" presented itself in non-compliance in 8 of the 9 points presented by the current legislation. Of the 14 food/beverage commercial announced by the stations, 9 (64.3%) had children's language and characters, 6 (43.0%) had children's songs sung by voices of children, and 3 (21.4%) linked the distributionofgiveaways to food.Conclusion: Although the number of commercialsof food and beverage found was below the quantities observed in previous studies in the country, and significantly lower than commercials of other advertised products, most items were of ultraprocessed foods, which can negatively influence the acquisition of healthy eating habits in childhood and raise the risk of childhood obesity. Furthermore, announced food commercials showed different non-compliance with current legislation.