A content analysis of television food advertising to children: comparing low and general-nutrition food Hyuksoo Kim 1 , Doohwang Lee 2 , Yangsun Hong 3 , Jungsun Ahn 4 and Ki-Young Lee 4 1 Department of Journalism, Ball State University, Indiana, USA 2 Department of Journalism and Communication, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea 3 School of Journalism and Mass Communication, The University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA 4 School of Advertising and Public Relations, Hongik University, Sejong, Korea Keywords Child, food advertising, nutrition, youth, Content Analysis. Correspondence Doohwang Lee, Ph.D., Associate Professor Department of Journalism and Communication, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. E-mail: doolee@khu.ac.kr doi: 10.1111/ijcs.12243 Abstract Television food advertisements targeted at children were content analysed. Data were collected on four major children’s cable television channels in the United States aired during the hours of 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. over the period of 23 August to 5 September 2012. Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, the study identified a variety of persuasive appeals with central and peripheral cues in the child-targeted food commercials. Further, it investigated how the central and peripheral cues in the appeals were differently associated with low-nutrition and general-nutrition food commercials. Overall, the findings showed that general-nutrition food commercials used persuasive appeals with central cues more frequently than low-nutrition food commercials. Theoretical, practical and regulatory implications are discussed. Introduction Childhood obesity has steadily increased in recent years in the United States. A recent national health survey reported that 14.94% of children between ages 2 and 19 in the United States were overweight (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). The growing epidemic of childhood obesity has become a major public health concern. Food advertising targeting at chil- dren has been often criticized for its influence on the child’s unhealthy preference for sugary and low-nutrition food products and its possible link to childhood obesity (Institute of Medicine, 2006; Lee et al., 2009). For example, Halford et al. (2007) found that exposure to sugary snack and cereal advertising led children to select those unhealthy foods rather than the relatively unadver- tised healthy fruits, vegetables and other high-nutrition products. Similarly, Harris et al. (2009) demonstrated that children who viewed food commercials were likely to opt for unhealthy sugared foods rather than healthy food products. One potent force of advertising to influence children’s unheal- thy dietary habits may come from various persuasive appeals used in commercials (Barcus and Wolkin, 1977; Warren et al., 2008; Wicks et al., 2009; Moon, 2010). For example, Connor (2006) found that magic/fantasy appeal was identified as one of the most frequently used appeal in children-targeted foods. Simi- larly, Warren et al. (2008) demonstrated that appeals with attention-getting techniques, such as special effect cues, were also used in commercials very often and suggested that these appeals are likely to divert children’s attention from pertinent product information because they would limit children’s cognitive proc- essing capability for important nutrition information. In fact, several researchers have demonstrated how advertisers strategically create and use advertising appeals in food commer- cials to attract children (Linn, 2004; Story and French, 2004; Connor, 2006; Bell et al., 2009; Wicks et al., 2009). However, no studies have attempted to investigate how particular advertising appeals are differently used in commercials for food products with a different level of nutrition, such as low-nutrition and general-nutrition food products (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2005). Theoretically, both low-nutrition and general- nutrition food products should provide accurate nutrition informa- tion in their advertisements. However, in reality, low-nutrition food products might not provide important nutrition information as suggested. Instead, such food products might strategically use persuasive appeals that are not associated with important nutri- tional information in their advertisements to attract children and their parents. This marketing practice can be problematic because it may influence children and their parents’ decision, which may in turn contribute to the childhood obesity (Halford et al., 2007; Harris et al., 2009). The aim of this study is to examine how particular advertising appeals are differently used in commercials for the two types of food products: low-nutrition and general-nutrition food products. Based on elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion (Petty and Cacioppo, 1984), this study expects that as advertising appeals, central cues of the food commercials targeted to chil- dren, are more likely to be used for promoting general-nutrition food products, whereas peripheral cues of the food commercials are more likely to be utilized for promoting low-nutrition food products. It is theoretically because people are not only persuaded after their careful and thoughtful assessment of the true merits (e.g. central cues) of the advertised food products but also per- suaded by their association with surface characteristics (e.g. peripheral cues) about the merits of the advertised food products. International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6423 1 International Journal of Consumer Studies 00 (2015) 00–00 V C 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd