Table 3 Principals’ views and knowledge of food and beverage marketing overall and by school type
From: Food and beverage marketing in primary and secondary schools in Canada
Agree n (%) | Neutral n (%) | Disagree n (%) | p-Value† | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Overall | Primary | Secondary | Overall | Primary | Secondary | Overall | Primary | Secondary | ||
VIEWS | ||||||||||
I have concerns about the educational value of some teaching materials produced by food and beverage companies/industry associations | 93 (64) | 67 (64) | 26 (63) | 45 (31) | 32 (31) | 12 (29) | 8 (5) | 5 (5) | 3 (7) | 0.834‡ |
Schools should be an environment that is free from the commercial pressures children face nowadays | 116 (79) | 84 (81) | 31 (76) | 23 (16) | 16 (15) | 7 (17) | 7 (5) | 4 (4) | 3 (7) | 0.642‡ |
Exposing students to food/beverage marketing in schools is an acceptable trade-off for funds or resources that may otherwise not be available | 27 (18) | 19 (18) | 7 (17) | 40 (27) | 26 (25) | 14 (34) | 79 (54) | 59 (57) | 20 (49) | 0.534 |
Schools should not be seen to promote a particular food/beverage brand or company | 113 (77) | 86 (83) | 27 (66) | 23 (16) | 13 (13) | 10 (24) | 10 (7) | 5 (5) | 4 (10) | 0.088‡ |
It is perfectly acceptable to occasionally give students free samples of branded food or beverage products, regardless of nutritional profile | 20 (14) | 9 (9)a | 11 (28)a | 21 (14) | 13 (13) | 7 (18) | 104 (72) | 82 (79)b | 22 (55)b | 0.006 |
It is only fair that food and beverage companies/industry associations gain some commercial benefit from providing schools with funds or other resources | 24 (16) | 11 (11)a | 12 (29)a | 40 (27) | 30 (29) | 10 (24) | 82 (56) | 63 (61) | 19 (46) | 0.021 |
As long as the school benefits, it does not matter if a food/beverage company or industry association has a commercial motive for providing money or other resources | 10 (7) | 4 (4) | 5 (12) | 14 (10) | 8 (8) | 6 (15) | 121 (83) | 91 (88) | 30 (73) | 0.065‡ |
Encouraging students to collect token from items with a high fat, salt or sugar content undermines teaching about healthy eating | 119 (82) | 83 (81) | 35 (85) | 13 (9) | 9 (9) | 4 (10) | 13 (9) | 11 (11) | 2 (5) | 0.546 |
To expose a captive audience of school children to commercial food/beverage messages is exploitative/raises ethical concerns | 118 (82) | 87 (85) | 31 (76) | 17 (12) | 7 (7)a | 9 (22)a | 9 (6) | 8 (8) | 1 (2) | 0.022‡ |
Most teachers in our school evaluate classroom materials for bias or promotional content | 117 (81) | 80 (78) | 36 (89) | 17 (12) | 15 (15) | 2 (5) | 11 (8) | 8 (8) | 3 (7) | 0.258‡ |
KNOWLEDGE | ||||||||||
Schemes that involves collecting tokens/vouchers unfairly influence students to buy certain items when given the opportunity, either at school or in the community | 119 (83) | 84 (82) | 34 (83) | 12 (8) | 7 (7) | 5 (12) | 13 (9) | 11 (11) | 2 (5) | 0.347‡ |
Schools involvement with some food/beverage companies/industry associations may have an undesirable effect on the food choices that students make | 118 (81) | 86 (84) | 32 (78) | 16 (11) | 9 (9) | 6 (15) | 11 (8) | 8 (8) | 3 (7) | 0.579‡ |
Food and beverage marketing is thought to be associated with childhood obesity | 110 (76) | 79 (77) | 31 (76) | 23 (16) | 17 (17) | 6 (15) | 11 (8) | 6 (6) | 4 (10) | 0.699‡ |