Modification and Development of Protocols for the Content Analysis of the Food Advertisements in Mass Media and School Surroundings in Iran

Considering important roles of advertisement in food choices, especially for children and adolescents, valid tools are needed to assess changes in the content of advertisements. The purpose of the present study was to prepare standard protocols for assessing the content of food advertisements of televisions, radios, billboards and school surroundings in Iran.

Standardization was carried out by adjusting and localizing International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable Diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) protocol in five stages. After translating protocols of each section and using opinions and suggestions of experts about the protocols, variables of each protocol were reviewed, revised and sometimes changed. Then, face and content validities of all four protocols were assessed using experts' opinions. Data from two studies (content analysis of media food advertisements and surrounding environment of Shiraz schools in 2020 and 2021, respectively) were coded using modified protocols. Then, reliability of the protocols was checked by assessing the coefficient of agreements between the researchers.

The final items for assessing the content of food advertisements in three mass media and school surroundings were achieved in the form of four separate protocols. Reliabilities for all four protocols were acceptable (for the media and school surroundings more than 90 and 89%, respectively).

In the current study, several standard protocols for assessing the content of food advertisements in mass media and school surroundings have been presented for the first time. The protocols can be provided to produce reliable, uniform and usable information at the national and international levels.