Monitoring food marketing to children: A joint Nordic monitoring protocol for marketing of foods and beverages high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) towards children and young people

The protocol describes methods for how to monitor marketing of foods and beverages high in fat, salt and sugar towards children and young people at a given time as cross-sectional studies, as well as allowing for monitoring of trends. The data provided could also be used for evaluation purposes, for instance providing relevant data for evaluating regulation practices and schemes in the respective countries; to study advertising and marketing practices, contents and forms over time. In addition to being a tool for monitoring purposes within each country, the protocol will also enable comparisons between the Nordic countries by establishing a joint understanding on how each marketing channel should be monitored. The protocol has been developed as a Nordic project between representatives and experts from Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway together with international experts

Promoting dietary change. Intervening in school and recognizing health messages in commercials

The purpose of this thesis was to examine influences on dietary change among children and adolescents with particular emphasis on individual factors, the school setting and food marketing. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was used to develop a controlled school-based intervention with a focus on fish among 8th grade pupils in the Gothenburg area. Factors influencing fish consumption in school were studied by means of focus group discussions in a school class (n=23) and a questionnaire at two schools (n=162). Fish consumption was measured by observation. In the intervention study, 228 pupils from three schools participated and changes in the school lunch (SL), further augmented by changes in the home economics syllabus (SL+HE) were compared regarding changes in behaviour, attitudes and knowledge. At follow up, fish consumption had increased significantly in the SL+HE group and positive changes in nutritional knowledge were seen in both intervention groups. The frequency and nature of television food advertising to children was compared in eleven countries including Sweden. Television in the three commercial channels most popular with children aged 3-12 years (in Sweden TV3, TV4 and Kanal 5) was recorded between 06:00 and 22:00 for two weekdays and two weekend days (n=192h). In 82 of the Swedish commercials, further analyses of how food was articulated in the health discourse during children’s peak viewing times were carried out by means of discourse analysis. Across countries, the proportion of food advertisements varied (11-29%, in Sweden 18%) as well as advertisements for non-core foods, i.e. foods high in undesirable nutrients and/or energy (53-87%, in Sweden 63%). Overall, the rate of non-core food advertising was higher in children’s peak viewing times and the majority of food advertisements containing persuasive marketing were for non-core foods. Health aspects were used extensively in Swedish commercials; food was articulated as treatment or protection, as feeling good or as caring. Some foods with unhealthy associations (e.g. hamburger meals, crisps and high-fat dairy) were endorsed as ‘healthier’ by means of offensive rhetoric

Teaching information seeking. Discursive practice in two upper secondary school teacher teams.

The aim of the present thesis is to examine discourses about teaching information seeking in upper secondary school teachers. The main questions are: (1) What different interpretative repertoires can be identified among teachers talking about teaching information seeking in relation to students’ problem-based tasks? (2) How are these repertoires constructed and what functions can be observed? The theoretical framework is discursive psychology. Two teacher teams from two different upper secondary schools in the Gothenburg area participated in focus group interviews. Group A consisted of four teachers from the Individual Programme and group B of seven teachers from the Social Science Programme. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The main focus of the analysis was on discerning interpretative repertoires, subject positioning among teachers, the presence of various ideological dilemmas in the talk and rhetorical aspects used by the teachers. Five different interpretative repertoires were identified; the Information repertoire, the Source repertoire, the Behavioural repertoire, the Process repertoire and the Communicative repertoire. Moreover, each repertoire consists of different ways of talking about teaching information seeking. Throughout the discussions, two recurring aspects emerge that govern the teachers’ way of talking about teaching information seeking; the students’ ability and the organisation of the school. The ideological dilemmas that appear in the talk deal with the teacher role, different views on the quality of information sources and the teaching of evaluation of information sources. Other dilemmas include the judgement of students’ work and how to handle plagiarism.Uppsatsnivå:

“If it’s not Iron it’s Iron f*cking biggest Ironman”: personal trainers’ views on health norms, orthorexia and deviant behaviours

Orthorexia nervosa (ON) describes a pathological obsession with healthy eating to avoid ill health. In the Swedish context, ON is also understood in terms of unhealthy exercise. Fitness gyms are popular health-promoting places, but exercise-related problems, disordered eating and ON-like behaviour are increasing. Personal trainers (PTs) play an important role in detecting unhealthy behaviours. The aim of the present study was to illuminate PTs’ understandings of healthy and unhealthy exercise and eating behaviours in relation to orthorexia nervosa in a fitness gym context. Five focus groups with 14 PTs were conducted. These were analysed using interpretative qualitative content analysis and Becker’s model “Kinds of Deviance.” In contrast to PTs’ health norms (practicing balanced behaviours and contributing to well-being), ON was expressed mainly in terms of exercise behaviour and as being excessive and in total control. The PTs maintain that extreme behaviours are legitimized by an aggressive exercise trend in society and that they fear to falsely accuse clients of being pathological. Certain sport contexts (bodybuilding, fitness competitions and elite sports) and specific groups (fitness professionals) contribute to complicating PTs’ negotiations due to a competition, performance and/or profession norm, making it difficult to determine whether or not to intervene

Television and food in the lives of young children

Several mechanisms have been proposed behind the associations between screens and overweight including sedentary behaviour, eating while viewing, and exposure to commercials. Aspects of this association as underlying social factors and the possible confounding factors of social norms in the family that can affect children’s lifestyle have received less attention. TV commercials for food and beverages have been extensively studied and it is important to study the appearance of food in children’s TV programmes in a similar way. The general aim of this thesis is to examine the associations between young children’s screen habits, food habits and anthropometry as well as to analyse food and beverages in children’s television programmes in public service television in Sweden. Data from the European research project Identification and prevention of dietary and lifestyle-induced health effects in children and infants (IDEFICS) has been used in Papers I-III and 25 hours of children’s TV programmes have been analysed for Paper IV. The main findings indicate that children’s TV viewing and total screen time was found to be associated with their increased sweet drink consumption, BMI and waist to height ratio, according to cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. The association between TV viewing and sweetened beverage consumption was found to be independent of parental norms regarding sweetened beverages. Exposure to commercial TV was associated with consuming sweetened beverages more frequently independently of TV viewing time. One in five foods appearing in the sample of children’s TV programmes was for high-calorie and low-nutrient foods, often appearing with children. The results indicate that it is possible to affect children’s food habits by influencing their TV habits, and that public service television has the potential to improve the way food and eating are depicted in children’s TV programmes