Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Food Advertising on Children’s Knowledge about and Preferences for Healthful Food
Table 2
Role of commercials on food knowledge and preferences: OLS/probit estimates.
Knowledge (1–10) OLS
Knowledge (>6, dummy) Probit
Preferences (1–10) OLS
Preferences (>6, dummy) Probit
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(A) Parental norms and attitudes
H1: attitudes towards ads (parents): usefulness and credibility
.071
.036
.014
.008
.089
.088
(.123)
(.291)
(.243)
(.242)
(.148)
(.148)
H1: attitudes towards ads (parents): effects of ads
−.112
−.160
.266
.276
.271*
.272*
(.106)
(.224)
(.254)
(.255)
(.149)
(.148)
H2: discussing TV programs with child
−.181
.017
−.211
−.195
−.107
−.108
(.191)
(.433)
(.349)
(.351)
(.228)
(.229)
(B) Physical environment
H3: TV consumption (hours per day)
.061
.268
.145
.140
.049
.048
(.116)
(.220)
(.191)
(.193)
(.130)
(.130)
H3: bedroom equipment
−.286
−.457
.301
.327
.120
.206
(.185)
(.386)
(.432)
(.440)
(.242)
(.243)
(C) Advertising
H4: credibility dimension
−.031
−.031
−.034
−.032
−.056*
−.055*
(.021)
(.041)
(.051)
(.052)
(.033)
(.033)
H4: suspiciousness dimension
.018
−.054
.027
.025
−.016
−.015
(.024)
(.056)
(.059)
(.059)
(.036)
(.036)
H4: entertainment dimension
−.087***
−.097*
−.049
−.041
−.022
−.021
(.027)
(.051)
(.059)
(.063)
(.038)
(.038)
(D) Food knowledge
H5: food knowledge
.090
.191
(.159)
(.468)
Observations
204
204
204
204
204
204
.276
.184
.080
.081
.069
.069
-value/Wald
7.73
28.52
1.10
1.13
17.02
17.68
value
.000
.008
.360
.334
.255
.280
Robust standard errors in parentheses; control variables are sex and age of child, parental education (ISCED), and country dummies. Reference category for age is 9 years and for countries, Belgium. ; ; . OLS: ordinary least squares estimator.
