Getting children to cut back on sugar-sweetened beverages like soda and energy drinks has been the goal of anti-obesity public service advertisements. A new study evaluates the effectiveness of persuasive techniques -- humor, fear and nurturance -- used in those PSAs.
A new study of public service advertisements (PSAs) to address obesity finds that appealing to fear – and the health consequences of too much sugar, such as diabetes and heart disease – had the greatest effect on teens’ intention to cut back on sugary beverages like soda and energy drinks.
Excessive television viewing has been linked to childhood obesity, behavioral and attention issues, reading problems and poor educational achievement. A study suggests that one promising approach for parents to curb kids' excess viewing is to focus on curtailing TV time right before bed.
Although many public service announcements (PSAs) about sugar-sweetened beverages emphasize that the drinks are high in sugar and calories, most parents already know that, so PSAs that take this approach to curtailing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages are likely to be ineffective, a study of Philadelphia parents has found.
APPC Research Associate Jessica Taylor Piotrowski and Research Coordinator Shonna Kydd gave a poster presentation, “Developing Media Interventions to Reduce Household Sugar-sweetened Beverage Consumption,” at the 29th annual scientific meeting of The Obesity Society in October. Authors of the work are Amy B. Jordan, Michael Hennessy, Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, Amy Bleakley, and Shonna Kydd of
Joelle Sano Gilmore, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at APPC’s Annenberg Center for Advanced Study in Communication, presented research findings at the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia, PA on February 25, 2011. Dr. Gilmore discussed similarities between corporate underwriting spots during children’s programming on PBS and advertisements during children’s programming on commercial networks, including the use of child-friendly production techniques and the prevalence of spots
The grant is part of a $25.5 million award to the city of Philadelphia for anti-obesity and anti-tobacco programs from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Amy Jordan, Ph.D., Amy Bleakley, Ph.D., and Michael Hennessy, Ph.D., representing APPC’s Media and the Developing Child and Health Communication areas, will team up to help the
On Wednesday, February 24, Dr. Amy Jordan, head of APPC’s Media and the Developing Child program, provided testimony at Philadelphia City Council hearings on the complex challenges facing Philadelphia in the fight against obesity. The hearings – part of a larger initiative to promote healthy eating and physical activity in the community – aimed to
More than nine million children in the United States are overweight, a figure that has tripled since the 1970s. Overweight children are more likely to suffer psychological and physical health problems in their youth, and those problems are likely to follow them to adulthood. Obesity may be the number-one health problem facing children today. That