Junk food, sugary drinks and XL portion sizes: advertising on convenience stores near primary schools in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

There are no government policies in Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ) sufficient to protect children from unhealthy food and beverage marketing. Repeated exposure to advertising can have long-term impacts on children’s dietary preferences, ultimately increasing the risk of non-communicable diseases in adulthood. An important food environment for children is the area around their school. This study aims to describe outdoor food and beverage advertising on convenience stores within 500 m of all primary schools (n = 371) within the Auckland region. Images of advertisements were captured from Google Street View. A total of 3693 advertisements were collected from 296 stores. The majority (n = 2628, 78.2%) of advertisements were classified as marketing to children. Convenience stores in areas surrounding low decile schools (n = 1170, 51.8%) had twice as many advertisements than areas around medium (n = 561, 24.8%) or high (n = 529, 23.4%) decile schools. Approximately half (n = 1863, 50.5%) of advertisements were for unhealthy food or beverages, and less than ten percent (n = 350, 9.4%) were for healthy products. These findings highlight the need for policies to reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy advertising in their school food environment.