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Project

Investigating the power of cooking television (and related) as a positive stimulus to promote healthy eating habits among children.

More than ever it is important to educate children about food literacy, which refers to the all tools needed for a healthy lifelong relationship with food. Food literacy can help to prevent obesity, which has increased to epidemic proportions over the past three decades. In many ways television (TV) consumption is linked to this obesity epidemic, partly due to viewers' exposure to unhealthy foods. This influence of food exposure via TV has mainly been studied in the context of TV advertisements, while scant attention has been paid to the potential role of TV cooking shows. These shows, along with food content on social media have become important food information sources for young viewers. Yet little is known about the nutritional value of recipes prepared in these shows, and their potential impact on young audiences. The general aim of this project is therefore to study the relation between food media (TV cooking shows and food content on social media) and food literacy in a population of Flemish children aged 9-16 years old (a life stage when children become vulnerable to messages about food). In the past 28 months, a range of nutritional content analyses of TV cooking shows targeting children have shown that the nutritional value of recipes in these shows is poor (OBJ. 1). Second, the outcomes of a few survey studies have shown that watching these shows correlates with aspects of food literacy (OBJ.3) and results of two experiments showed that watching TV cooking shows can influence food choice behavior (OBJ.4). In addition, a new scale to measure food literacy among children was developed, and this scale just needs a few more validation studies to be completed (OBJ.2). Finally, a last series of experiments is planned to study the effect of TV cooking shows on all the different aspects of food literacy (planning, selecting, preparing and eating foods). The outcomes of this project will help us understand if and how TV cooking shows and food content on social media may contribute to the ongoing obesity epidemic, and offer suggestions for how we could remediate this process. For instance, one of the experiments of this project has already demonstrated that a TV cooking show episode that focuses on healthy food choices (fresh fruits and vegetables) shifts children's food choice behavior from less healthy to more healthy food choices (choosing fruit as a snack rather than a cookie). This means that if we can nudge program makers to focus (more) on healthy food choices in (TV) cooking shows, these media platforms could be successfully used to endorse healthy eating habits. This, and other suggestions that will come out of this project make this a timely and necessary study that is near completion.
Date:15 Jul 2018 →  14 Jul 2019
Keywords:MEDIA CONTENT, MEDIA-USE, MEDIA AND ICT IN ORGANISATIONS AND SOCIETY, HEALTHY ADOLESCENTS
Disciplines:Communication sciences, Journalism and professional writing, Media studies, Other media and communications