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School food environment: Quality and advertisement frequency of child-oriented packaged products within walking distance of public schools

Equity Focus

 The study targets the food environment within walking distance of schools in Vienna, Austria in terms of food quality and marketing, and the extent to which elements of the food environment vary according to distance from schools.

Case Summary

In a cross-sectional study, we analyzed the surrounding food environments of a convenience sample of 46 target schools within 950m walking distance in 7 different urban districts across Vienna, Austria. In total, we analyzed data from 67 fast food outlets and 54 supermarkets analyzing a total of 43.129 packaged snack food and beverage products, from which 85% were for adults and 15% of the products were child-oriented. Proximity to the schools did not affect the availability of child-oriented products and dedicated food advertisements for children. After applying nutrient profiling using the Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) on child-oriented products, results showed that 15.8% of the packaged snack food were categorized as "healthy" foods and 84.2% as "less healthy"; for beverages 65.7% were categorized as "healthy" and 34.3% as "less healthy".

Lessons Learned

• The results show that child-oriented snacks are not more frequently advertised around schools but substantially lack in nutritional quality with the potential to undermine efforts for promoting healthy eating practices within schools.
  

LINK TO CASE STUDY