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Nutritional quality and marketing strategies of fast food children’s combo meals in Guatemala

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Obesity, December 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (78th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (71st percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 policy source
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5 X users
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2 Facebook pages

Citations

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17 Dimensions

Readers on

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87 Mendeley
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Title
Nutritional quality and marketing strategies of fast food children’s combo meals in Guatemala
Published in
BMC Obesity, December 2016
DOI 10.1186/s40608-016-0136-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Sofia Mazariegos, Violeta Chacón, Adam Cole, Joaquin Barnoya

Abstract

Overweight and obesity prevalence in children is now on the rise in low/middle-income countries, including Guatemala. Fast food consumption is a recognized contributing factor to this rise. Fast food restaurants use health claims, toy giveaways, price incentives and fast service to promote children's combo meals. This study sought to assess the use of toy giveaways, time to delivery and price incentives as marketing strategies in fast food chain restaurants in Guatemala. In addition, we sought to compare nutritional quality of combo meals with and without health claims. We visited one restaurant from each of the 8 major fast food chains in Guatemala and purchased all children's combo meals to assess the prevalence of toy giveaways, health claims, and difference in delivery time and price between the combo meal and each meal item purchased separately. Each item was then classified as "healthy" or "less healthy" using the UK Nutrition Profile Model. Nutrition information was collected on-site, from the restaurant website, or by calling the customer service phone number. We found 114 combo meals, 21 (18.4%) of which were children's combo meals. Five (24%) had nutrition information, all were classified by our analysis as "less healthy", and three had a health claim. On average, combo meals were US$1.93 less expensive than purchasing children's meal items individually (p = 0.01). Time to delivery was 1.44 min faster for combo meals compared to purchasing meal items individually (p = 0.19). Children's fast food combo meals in Guatemala were promoted using several marketing strategies that encourage consumption, including offering toy giveaways and price incentives. In addition, nutrition information is lacking in fast food chain restaurants. Public health advocates in Guatemala should consider a comprehensive approach to encourage healthier choices within fast food restaurants including policies that require fruit and vegetable options for meal side dishes, accessible and easy to read nutrition information, and restrict the use of toy giveaways.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 87 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 87 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 16 18%
Student > Bachelor 16 18%
Student > Master 10 11%
Researcher 8 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 3 3%
Other 6 7%
Unknown 28 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 16 18%
Medicine and Dentistry 14 16%
Business, Management and Accounting 9 10%
Social Sciences 8 9%
Engineering 3 3%
Other 9 10%
Unknown 28 32%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 February 2022.
All research outputs
#4,770,955
of 23,881,329 outputs
Outputs from BMC Obesity
#56
of 179 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#92,196
of 424,563 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Obesity
#5
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,881,329 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 79th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 179 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 424,563 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 78% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.