Exploring the Relationships Between Healthy Active Living Marketing and Family Eating and Physical Activity Perceptions and Behaviours

Abstract

Canada’s obesogenic environment is host to the advironment, which bombards children with advertisements for soft drinks, fast foods, confectionary, cereals and savory snacks (‘the Big 5’). Television is the primary media outlet used by advertisers to promote the Big 5 to the widest range of Canadian children. A recent trend in commercial marketing is to portray the Big 5 products in a physical activity, exercise or sport context, described here as Healthy Active Living Marketing. This study was designed to explore the relationships between Healthy Active Living Marketing and children and caregivers’ eating and physical activity perceptions and behaviors. Four caregiver-child dyads from communities of York Region, Ontario consented to collect family food receipts, complete commercial activity worksheets, one-on-one interviews and a caregiver questionnaire. A combination of descriptive statistics, content analyses and thematic analyses revealed caregiver control plays a significant role in the appropriateness of eating perceptions and behaviours.