Newswise — PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 26, 2013 — A new report from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design identifies unhealthy retail advertising practices, particularly in lower income areas of Philadelphia and within a few blocks of schools.
In the study of 2,800 tobacco retailers, two-thirds of stores had indoor and outdoor ads for sugary beverages and tobacco products — approximately 3.1 outdoor sugary drink ads and 3.5 outdoor tobacco ads on average.
“The report provides communities valuable information they can use to improve where they live, learn and play,” said Jill Birnbaum, vice president of state advocacy & public health for the American Heart Association. “It can be extremely difficult for families, especially those with children, to make healthy choices while being constantly bombarded with unhealthy images and messages encouraging them to consume unhealthy products.”
Stores accepting food assistance programs for low-income families, often with children, were 15-30% more likely to have ads promoting unhealthy products. In addition, the report highlights that the poorer the neighborhood, the more retailers were in the neighborhood and asserts that “residents of poor neighborhoods are exposed to more tobacco retailers—and thus more tobacco and sugary beverage advertising—than their counterparts in more affluent parts of the city.”
The stark difference between tobacco and sugar-sweetened beverage marketing on storefronts in low-income neighborhoods versus the lack of such marketing in affluent neighborhoods demonstrates how environments may only further health disparities, Birnbaum said.
The City of Philadelphia recently passed a law limiting advertising on windows of retail spaces. The American Heart Association has been deeply concerned about outdoor advertising aimed at kids and we are eager to look at how Philadelphia’s ordinance might improve the ad landscape with regard to the marketing onslaught from sugary beverages and calorie dense nutritionally void food and snacks in poor neighborhoods, Birnbaum said.
The association’s national Voices for Healthy Kids program also works to protect children from unhealthy food and beverage marketing, along with other actions to improve kids’ health by: • improving the nutritional quality of snack foods and beverages in schools;• reducing consumption of sugary beverages;• increasing access to affordable healthy foods;• increasing access to parks, playgrounds, walking paths, bike lanes and other opportunities to be physically active; and• helping schools and youth-serving programs increase children’s physical activity levels.###
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