Ong Gild Rick, Sameeha Mohd Jamil, Narayanan Sreelakshmi Sankara, Chinna Karuthan, Kelly Bridget, Mackay Sally, Swinburn Boyd, Karupaiah Tilakavati
School of Biosciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia.
Nutritional Sciences Programme, Centre for Community Health Studies (ReaCH), Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Glob Health Action. 2025 Dec;18(1):2543617. doi: 10.1080/16549716.2025.2543617. Epub 2025 Aug 21.
Regulating unhealthy food marketing is critical as it is a recognized driver of childhood obesity. Two voluntary self-regulatory policies governing food advertising in the media were introduced in Malaysia in 2008 and 2013.
To assess food advertising on Malaysian children's popular television channels across a decade using the standardized INFORMAS protocol.
The main dataset was collected cross-sectionally from 2020 to 2022 evaluating three television channels. Additionally, a retrospective comparison between the 2022 and 2012 datasets was limited to two channels commonly available for both years. Advertised foods were classified as permitted (healthy) or not-permitted (unhealthy) using a nutrient profile model of the World Health Organization. We compared advertising rates and use of persuasive marketing techniques during children's peak viewing time (PVT) versus non-PVT.
Unhealthy food advertising rates remained significantly higher than healthy food for all years of measurement (all < 0.001). For the main dataset years (2020, 2021, 2022), unhealthy food advertising rates were 84%, 65%, and 72% higher during PVT compared to non-PVT (all < 0.001). For all 3 years, the use of persuasive marketing techniques engaged in unhealthy food advertising during PVT was greater compared to non-PVT (all < 0.05), whereas this pattern was not observed for the 2012 dataset (all > 0.05). In 2022, fast foods emerged as the most frequently advertised unhealthy food (1.33 ± 2.23 ads/h/channel), a six-fold increase compared to 2012 (0.21 ± 0.47 ads/h/channel).
Unhealthy food advertising dominates Malaysian children's popular television channels, especially during PVT despite the presence of voluntary self-regulatory policies. These findings underscore the need for government-led mandatory regulations to control unhealthy food marketing targeting children.
规范不健康食品营销至关重要，因为它是公认的儿童肥胖驱动因素。马来西亚在2008年和2013年出台了两项关于媒体食品广告的自愿性自我监管政策。
使用标准化的INFORMAS协议，评估十年来马来西亚儿童热门电视频道上的食品广告情况。
主要数据集于2020年至2022年进行横断面收集，评估了三个电视频道。此外，2022年和2012年数据集之间的回顾性比较仅限于这两年都常见的两个频道。使用世界卫生组织的营养成分模型，将广告食品分为允许（健康）或不允许（不健康）两类。我们比较了儿童黄金收视时段（PVT）和非黄金收视时段的广告率以及说服性营销技巧的使用情况。
在所有测量年份中，不健康食品广告率仍显著高于健康食品广告率（所有P<0.001）。对于主要数据集年份（2020年、2021年、2022年），与非黄金收视时段相比，黄金收视时段的不健康食品广告率分别高出84%、65%和72%（所有P<0.001）。在所有三年中，与非黄金收视时段相比，黄金收视时段用于不健康食品广告的说服性营销技巧的使用更为频繁（所有P<0.05），而2012年数据集未观察到这种模式（所有P>0.05）。2022年，快餐成为广告宣传最频繁的不健康食品（1.33±2.23条广告/小时/频道），与2012年（0.21±0.47条广告/小时/频道）相比增加了六倍。
尽管有自愿性自我监管政策，但不健康食品广告在马来西亚儿童热门电视频道中占主导地位，尤其是在黄金收视时段。这些发现强调了政府主导的强制性法规对于控制针对儿童的不健康食品营销的必要性。
