The advertisement's impact on the nutritional habits of adolescent girls in Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example

? An Analytical Study of Nutrition Habits and Behavior of Girls in Adolescence and Their Relation to Advertisements in Saudi Arabia Introduction There is growing concern that the current environment that young people are subject to is causing them to make poor nutritional decisions. Such decisions are not only immediately detrimental, but they can lead to long term health effects and behavioral changes that last into their adult lives . Within a given day, youth are exposed to a wide range of different messages, many contradictory, from different sources such as from friends, parents, food advertisements, commercials and entertainment media. All of these sources of information have the potential to significantly influence behavior and to change the perceptions of youth about how they should be eating. Adolescence is a time where both males and females are subject to a range of different influences, both external and internal. Because of this, they are particularly vulnerable to pressure or suggestion. In particular, adolescent females are a particularly vulnerable group as they tend to be subject to peer pressure and to use external images to determine their perceptions of themselves more than other age groups or adolescent males . One external input that has been predicted to have a significant effect on the way that young women eat and their nutritional habits is advertising, such as through bulletin boards, newspaper advertising and advertising segments that appear during television programming. Advertising comes in many different forms. Sometimes it is direct, such as an advertisement that shows a particular food product, designed to encourage viewers to buy it. Other time advertising can be indirect, for example, television programs can often depict characters eating or drinking different types of food and drink, many of which are unhealthy. This can lead to the perception that such products are a normal part of the diet, when this may not be the case. However, advertising also has the potential for advertising to be used to help adolescents to make good nutrition decisions by informing them of what is healthy and what is not. Therefore, it is important to determine what effects advertising does have on the nutrition habits on adolescent girls and how this impact can be used to facilitate good nutritional choices and habits. This study focuses on adolescent girls within Saudi Arabia. This country was chosen because there have been few studies undertaken on advertising in this part of the world. It is likely that the effects that advertising has on adolescent girls will be significantly different in this part of the world than in Western country. Saudi Arabia is a Middle Eastern country that currently has a population of around 26.5 million people . There is a significant amount of segregation between the genders, and females mostly wear long black robes that cover their bodies . Because of this, it is likely that the influences that advertising has on the nutrition habits and behavior of adolescent girls is different in Saudi Arabia than it is in countries in the Western world. In particular, the aim of this research was to analyze the nutritional habits and behavior of adolescent girls in Saudi Arabia, and what effect advertising had on these habits. It was hypothesized that girls exposed to a high amount of advertising for unhealthy food would make poorer nutritional decisions than those who had less exposure to advertising. Review of the Literature Adolescence is a particularly important time in development, as decisions made and habits formed during this developmental period partially carry over to adulthood . For example, many adolescents, particularly females, do not eat breakfast in the morning due to a shortage of time or the desire to lose weight. This habit can carry through into their adult life, and females who had this habit when they were adolescents are likely to continue to feel that breakfast is not important. In addition, there is significant concern that the diet of adolescents is low in nutrients and high in unhealthy components such as sugar, salt and fat. Additionally, their pattern of eating is also considered to be unhealthy, with many children and adolescents missing meals, snacking and eating at unusual times . Nutrition is an important component of a person’s physical health, and poor nutrition has been associated with the accumulation of body fat as well as other negative health factors. Advertising targeted at young females tends to focus on images of females who are thin, pretty and with good physiques. These images are often airbrushed, or the women themselves have achieved this physical form through eating poorly. Research indicates that advertising images of thin or beautiful women have negative effects on the body image of women viewing them. This can lead to dissatisfaction with their current body, and the modification of beliefs and behaviors associated with eating . An example of this is that most females in advertisements for products are thin. This can result in adolescent females feeling that they are inadequate, and beginning to reduce their food intake to attempt to reach this unrealistic goal. Consequently, young females often starve themselves. These habits can remain long into adulthood, and may cause significant physical damage. This effect is strongest in adolescence where individuals are most concerned about their appearance and how they are perceived by others. Additionally, adolescent females are subject to extreme levels of hormones, and this can elevate their responses . Adolescent females use images of others to construct their perceptions about themselves . Negative body image is associated with a wide range of negative nutritional habits, including missed meals, restrained eating and eating disorders . Another effect that negative body image can have, is in creating mental problems, such as depression, which in turn has a significant effect on eating patterns. People with depression have unusual eating patterns, some may eat food for comfort or others may have no interest in food. Depression is a disorder that lasts for a lifetime, and consequently the effects that are stirred in adolescence can have long-lasting effects . Many manufactures and advertising firms target adolescents for their products and as a consequence a large proportion of food and beverage advertisements are specifically designed to make the produce very desirable for them . This can make it very difficult for young woman to resist the concepts that are presented to them through advertising. Furthermore, advertising has the ability to change the way that adolescents perceive food and what they consider to be correct types of eating and what is not. Without other education, many females will grow into adulthood and not be aware of the correct types of eating. The factors that influence food choice can differ substantially between different countries. For example, a study in northern Poland found that taste and freshness were the main drivers of food choice for university students while advertising played only a minor role . In contrast, American adolescents are generally considered to be highly influenced by advertising. Consequently, it is important to consider different environments separately from one another. A significant amount of research has been conducted examining the way in which advertisements affect nutrition decisions of female adolescents in the United States and other western countries. However, there has been little research into this in other parts of the world. Consequently, advertising has the potential to have a significant effect on eating habits, and it is important whether this is a significant problem within Saudi Arabia. Research Questions This study focuses on the way that advertising affects the behavior and nutrition habits of adolescent girls within Saudi Arabia. It was hypothesized that girls exposed to a high amount of food-based advertising would show poorer nutritional habits than those with less exposure to advertising. Advertising comes in many different types and it was considered important to analyze whether these had varying effects on behavior. Advertising for non-healthy food (such as sweets or fast food), sugary drinks, general non-specific advertising, and advertising for healthy food were all examined as independent factors. The following questions were considered important for the research. Does the type of advertising girls are exposed to affect their nutritional habits? Does exposure to advertising for healthy food result in better nutritional habits? Do girls consider advertising to have any effect on their nutritional choices? A secondary aim of this study was to determine how advertising could be used to influence positive nutritional choices by adolescent girls. The statistical results from the questionnaire would be able to show what aspects of advertising were highly influential on the nutritional habits of females. Methodology It was determined that the most effective form of research methodology would be a quantitative questionnaire. The use of questionnaires is a valuable research method as it allows for information to be gathered from a large range of subjects with relatively little use of resources . Respondents are often more honest in this form of research as the researcher has no way of personally identifying them, and this reduces the chance of people giving the responses that they feel are desired . This is particularly important with the sample group used in this study, as many teenage girls may feel embarrassed at their nutrition habits or the advertisements that they view. For this study, the questionnaire was designed to take no more than ten minutes of the participants’ time. For most questions, four or five possible answers will be available, aimed at determining the exposure that participants had to advertising and what some of their nutritional habits were. Sampling To obtain a representative sample group, participants will be recruited from high schools within Saudi Arabia. Adolescent females will be taken from four schools, two of which reside in one geographical zone and two in another zone. Female students from within three classes at each school will be given a questionnaire containing 15 multiple-choice questions and five short answer questions. These questions will be designed to obtain the maximum amount of information, and to allow for a measure of nutritional habits to be created. Operationalization Advertising exposure will be measured by asking the participants a number of questions concerning which forms of advertising they are familiar with. This will including questions asking participants if they recognize a line from a particular advert and asking what advertising they hear the most of and what they remember the most. Nutritional habits will be determined through questions asking what type of food the respondents preferred, what they ate most often, what they ate least often and how many times a week they ate particular types of food. In the final part of the questionnaire, respondents will be asked whether they consider there to be any connection between the advertising that they are exposed to and their nutritional choices, and whether they think such a link exists in general. Finally, they will be asked to write a short answer on whether they are happy with their nutritional choices and what they would like to change. In additional to these components several questions will ask about the demographic information of the respondents, such as exact age, family background, and level of stress. These factors are important, as they act as controls for determining whether the effects observed are the result of advertising or a different factor. Statistical Analysis Most of the information gathered in this study is quantitative due to the use of a mostly multiple-choice questionnaire, and will be able to be analyzed statistically. This will allow for a determination of what factors drove nutrition behavior and whether there was any difference in effect between the types of advertising. For each question, the responses will be broken down into categories to aid analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) comparisons will be used to determine whether there is any relationship between the types of advertising and nutritional patterns. Additionally, the demographic information from respondents will be added into the ANOVA test, to determine whether any of these had a significant impact on nutritional habits. In addition, the questions concerning nutritional habits will be used to create an overall value of each respondent’s nutritional habits. This will range from zero to five, with zero indicating poor to non-existent habits, while five indicates very good nutritional habits. For example, if the question was ‘how often do you have fast food?’ an answer of five or more time a week would give a score of zero, while once a month would give a score of one. The scores from multiple questions will be averaged to create the total score for that individual. This value can compared to the responses from exposure to advertising to determine whether there is a significant influence of different types of advertising exposure on nutritional habits. Thematic analysis will be used on the short answer questions to determine what opinions are the most prominent, and each response will be assigned to one or more of the identified themes. A t-test means comparison will be used to determine whether there are any significant differences in the themes that are present for different levels of advertising exposure. Future Perspectives The results of this study will help show whether advertisement has an effect on the nutrition habits of adolescent girls in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, this information can be used to determine the strength of this relationship, and what other factors influence adolescent female’s nutritional habits. References Read More