Background:

Food advertising to attract children has always been the order of the day for industries. In recent years, due to the epidemic of childhood obesity in developed countries, legislation is increasingly strict in this regard. The purpose of this study is to compare the products targeted in their labeling to children with other similar products that do not include childish advertising to assess whether there are nutritional differences between them.

Methods:

Cross-sectional observational descriptive study. We studied the food products sold in supermarkets and their equivalents for adults. A sample size of 160 products was used (80 children’s products and 80 adult products). The information was collected in person at 5 supermarkets. We analyzed frequency measures for descriptive results and chi-square for comparisons between qualitative variables.

Results:

In 58.75% of the products studied no greater nutritional suitability was found for the children despite being destined through the packaging directly to them. The 52.94%, in addition, had a higher price in children’s products despite having the same nutritional characteristics.

Conclusions:

The products with infantile packaging present nutritional characteristics similar in packaging to those that are directed to the adult public, reason why an adequate revision is needed the nutritional labeling of the products when it goes to realize the purchases.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )