Junk Food Consumption Among High School Students in Iran: the Role of Food Advertising

Introduction: adolescence is one of the most important periods of human development.nutrition plays an important role in health and prevention of disease during this period. foodadvertising influences food purchase and food consumption among children and adolescents.most of these advertisements are about the foods high in fat, salt and sugar. high exposureto these kinds of advertisements increases the tendency towards consuming junk foods inadolescents.objective: this study aimed to determine the junk food consumption by the exposure to junkfood advertisements among high school students.materials and methods: this analytical study with crosssectional design, 341 studentsfrom public high schools in rasht, north ofiran were selected by cluster random samplingmethod. data were collected by a valid and reliable researchermade questionnaire. thequestionnaire was a selfreport designed by the researcher which had two parts adaptedfrom similar studies. the first part records demographic characteristics of students, andthe second part assess the source and frequency of exposure to fast food/junk foodadvertisement and the frequency of fast food/junk food consumption data analysis wasperformed using kruskalwallis test at a significance level of 0.05.results: most of the subjects (52.2%) were female and in the 11th grade (37.2%). in termsof the frequency of exposure to junk food advertisement, 37.2%, 33. 4% and 15.3% ofsubjects reported ldquo;from time to time rdquo;, ldquo;quite often rdquo; and ldquo;very often rdquo;, respectively. regardingthe source of exposure tojunk food advertisement, 51.9% were exposed to more than oneadvertising source. the kruskalwallis test results showed a significant difference in junkfood consumption frequency based on the frequency of exposure to food advertisement(p=0.0001).conclusion: high exposure to junk food advertisement can be associated with highconsumption of junk foods and subsequently having chronic diseases in adulthood. therefore,it is necessary to control the food advertising and provide a legal framework for supervising it.