HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 1
Representation of Health-related Behaviours in Animated Movies for Children: A Quantitative
Content Analysis
Benedetta Metafune
Student number: 11609133
Master’s program: Persuasive Communication
Thesis Supervisor: dr. Barbara Schouten
Word Count: 8,426
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 2
Abstract
This study aims to investigate how are healthy and unhealthy behaviours represented in animated movies for children from 1937 to 2018. A sample of 30 movies was systematically selected and content-analysed. The analysis revealed that unhealthy behaviours were overrepresented compared to healthy behaviours. Additionally, the characters who performed both healthy and unhealthy behaviours were more likely to be positive characters rather than negative characters. Furthermore, healthy and unhealthy behaviours were represented mainly visually instead of auditory or visually and auditory simultaneously. Lastly, healthy behaviours were more likely to be portrayed with a positive valence, while unhealthy behaviours were more likely to be portrayed with a negative valence. Interestingly, my study suggests that parents and educators should not prevent their children from watching animated movies, although adults’ supervision is always recommended.
Keywords: healthy behaviours, unhealthy behaviours, positive characters, villains, modality, valence, animated movies, children.
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 3
Introduction
A healthy lifestyle is a way of living that limits the risk of contracting serious diseases and avoiding early deaths (World Health Organization, 1999). According to Tobias, Jackson, Yeh, and
Huang (2007), a healthy lifestyle incorporates four healthy behaviours, namely protective factors in the prevention of chronical diseases, which are: healthy eating, tobacco and alcohol avoidance, and physical exercise. On the contrary, unhealthy behaviours, defined as risk factors in the causation of chronic diseases, include tobacco and alcohol consumption, unhealthy eating, and conducting a sedentary life (Tobias et al., 2007).
Nowadays, obesity, smoking and heavy alcohol consumptions are significant health problems, especially among children and adolescents. Interestingly, the global number of obese children under the age of 5 is forecast to increase to 70 million by 2025 (WHO, 2018). Childhood obesity might be caused by unhealthy diets and lack of physical exercise. The Dutch population was found to consume much more unhealthy food compared to the other European countries (National
Institute for Public Health and the Environment, 2016). Likewise, previous researches have shown that 66% of European children do not perform enough physical activity (WHO, 2002).
Tobacco use is likely to begin in early adolescence (Marshall et al., 2006). Globally, tobacco consumption accounts for 7 million deaths per year (WHO, 2018). Compared with adults, young people require less time to establish a nicotine addiction (WHO & HBSC, 2016). Lastly, Europe has the highest level of alcohol consumption in the world, and around one in four European adolescents started to consume alcohol at age 13 or younger (WHO, 2018).
Television exposure is considered one of the potential causes of the increase in the adoption of unhealthy behaviours among the viewers, as many studies found a direct association between television exposure and increase of adiposity, unhealthy food intake, alcohol, and tobacco consumption among children (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010; Anderson & Butcher, 2006;
Dalton et al., 2009; Powell, Szczypka, & Chaloupka, 2007; Robinson, 2009). The influence that TV might have on viewers’ health behaviors can be explained through social learning theory, according HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 4
to which individuals can learn through vicarious observations in a socially mediated context
(Bandura, 2001). More specifically, through observational learning, humans can apprehend easily and rapidly by looking at models’ actions and their consequences. By observing the actions of models on television, certain behaviours can be both prompted or inhibited (Bandura, 2001).When focusing on the effects of mediated modelling, researchers analyzed mostly the presence of health- related behaviours in commercials (i.e. Sandberg, Gidlöf, & Holmberg, 2011), or in TV shows
(Charry, 2014; Greenberg, Rosaen, Worrell, Salmon, & Volkman, 2009). However, little is known about the presence of unhealthy behaviours in children animated movies, although they play an important role in the early stages of childhood development. More specifically, by the age of three, children can learn various concepts via animated movies (Harriger, 2012). Since their value systems are, at least partially, shaped by media, children were found to identify with and learn from the animated characters they observe (Harriger, Serier, Luedke, Robertson, & Bojorquez, 2018).
Compared to advertising, which has a clear persuasive intent, animated movies might have a stronger persuasive potential among children because of their entertainment structure, which might lead to identification with the narrative and the characters (Moyer-Gusé, 2008). Indeed, children are likely to memorize songs, characters, scenes, and lines of animated movies (Goldstein, Sobel, &
Newman, 1999) and, most of the time, they start watching them before learning to talk and read
(Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorelli, 1986). Therefore, animated movies may shape children’s values and perspectives.
In addition, compared to TV shows, animated films have greater reach, because they are released in theatres and on DVDs. This allows the movies, which usually are defined as “classics masterpieces”, to be available to children on a continuing basis (Goldstein et al., 1999).
Interestingly, 2-5 years old children were found to watch animated movies 32 hours per week
(Habib & Soliman, 2015).
Previous studies on the health-related contents portrayed in animated movies focused on unhealthy behaviours, including smoking and alcohol consumption (Goldstein et al., 1999; Ryan & HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 5
Hoerrner, 2004; Thompson & Yokota, 2001). Interestingly, alcohol and tobacco are frequently portrayed in animated movies (Goldstein et al., 1999; Ryan & Hoerrner, 2004; Thompson &
Yokota, 2001). However, the studies show some contradictory results on the extent to which those behaviours are represented. In particular, unhealthy behaviours exposure rate was higher in the study conducted by Goldstein et al. (1999) and by Ryan and Hoerrner (2004) than in the study by
Thompson and Yokota (2001). Additionally, according to Ryan and Hoerrner (2004), the characters more frequently engaged in alcohol and tobacco consumption were the bad characters, who displayed smoking or drinking alcohol more often than good characters. This finding contradicts the results shown in the study conducted by Goldstein et al. (1999) and Thompson and Yokota (2001), according to which good characters use tobacco and alcohol as frequently as bad characters.
These differences in results might be caused by several elements, such as different operationalization of the main concepts, as well as different units analysed. For instance, Goldstein et al. (1999) and Thompson and Yokota (2001) took in consideration movies released from different studios, while Ryan and Hoerrner (2004) considered only Walt Disney movies. As outlined by
Thompson and Yokota (2001), additional investigation is needed in order to provide more consistent results.
My research aims to provide a clearer insight into the presence of unhealthy but also healthy behaviours in animated movies for children, taking into consideration the older movies as well as the most recent ones, which have never been analysed. Furthermore, my research will extend the range of the analyzed behaviours to nutrition and physical exercise as examples of healthy behaviours, which have never been analyzed before in the context of animated films. In TV shows for children, nutrition was found to be the most portrayed health-related content, since food was represented, on average, four times per hour (Busse, 2016). Regarding physical exercise, it was found to play a central role in the plots of TV shows for children (Byrd-Bredbenner, Finckenor, &
Grasso, 2003). Therefore, investigating how nutrition and physical exercise are represented in animated movies for children is important. HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 6
In sum, my research question is the following: “How are healthy (low calories food and drink intake, physical exercise) and unhealthy (fatty food intake, sugary and alcoholic beverages, smoking, sedentary lifestyle) behaviours represented in children’s animated movies from 1937 to
2018?”
Answering this research question is both scientifically and socially relevant. Since previous studies present some discrepancies, on the one hand I aim to provide consistency regarding the representation of unhealthy behaviours, such as alcohol and tobacco consumption, and the nature of the characters who perform such behaviours, by analyzing more recent movies and including in the sample movies released by different studios. On the other hand, I aim to extend our knowledge of the representation of a different type of unhealthy behaviour, which has never been analyzed before in this context, namely the adoption of sedentary lifestyle, as well as provide insights into the representation of healthy behaviours. Furthermore, I aim to extend our knowledge by analyzing the modality of presentation of such behaviours and the valence through which they are portrayed.
Therefore, this study aims to provide the academic world with a detailed insight into how the most relevant health-related issues are depicted in animated movies.
The present study is relevant for our society because it provides parents and caregivers with a clear picture of how healthy and unhealthy behaviours are portrayed in the movies their children usually watch. Therefore, based on the results, they can take important decisions about children’s animated movies exposure. More specifically, they could encourage or discourage their children to watch specific movies, depending on whether and how they portray health-related behaviours.
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 7
Theoretical Framework
Nature of the characters
Human beings make sense of the world through archetypes, namely universal patterns present in folktales and myths, unconsciously shared by everyone (Jung, 1970). In other words, all human beings perceive an identical meaning embodied in specific symbols, such as “the hero”, and
“the shadow” (Chang, Ivonin, Dìaz, Català, Chen, & Rauterberg, 2013). Movies, especially animated movies, are extremely likely to contain many archetypes, as they usually play out stories that derive from myths, folktales, and legends (Chang et al., 2013). Thus, in animated movies for children two of the most essential archetypes, namely “the hero”, or the good guy, and “the shadow”, that usually is the villain, are easily retrievable. Therefore, children are likely to make sense of the world through the simplistic opposition between good and bad (Yankah, 2004), as all the animated movies for children follow a similar pattern and contain these two archetypes that reflect this opposition: one or more heroes fighting against one or more villains. Hence, in animated movies, the characters may have a good or bad nature, based on the role they play in the story.
Characters with a positive nature aim to stop the bad guys, as “they must defend the good, the true, and the beautiful” (Yankah, 2004, p. 1022). They do not have any moral flaws, and they never question their path, as they know that their main mission is to safeguard the world from evil.
On the other hand, the bad guys are defined as those characters who show bad and harmful intentions, and, thus, they are intended to fail and be defeated by the good characters (Yankah,
2004). Generally, good characters are physically attractive, while bad characters are physically unattractive, in line with the beauty-goodness stereotype (Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Fraser, &
Stockdale, 2013). Indeed, Bazzini, Curtin, Joslin, Regan and Martz (2010) found that in Disney animated movies, attractive characters are more virtuous, more intelligent and more likely to reach a happy ending. On the other hand, unattractive characters were found to adopt a detrimental lifestyle and, most of the time, were found to be the villains. HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 8
As the attractiveness of the characters was found to be positively correlated with their morality (Bazzini et al., 2010), it can be assumed that good characters have the tendency to frequently show healthy behaviours because they are moral and wise, thus, they know that performing physical exercise, eating fruit and vegetables and avoiding alcohol and tobacco is good for their health. On the other hand, bad guys, who are unattractive and conduct an immoral life, might perform unhealthy behaviours more frequently, including tobacco and alcohol consumption, fat food intake and adoption of a sedentary lifestyle. In other words, the degree to which a character makes healthy choices is a reflection of his moral quality. This assumption is in line with Bandura
(2003), who argued that good characters should show beneficial lifestyles, while bad characters should show detrimental lifestyles.
The social learning theory postulates that people, and children, in particular, can learn by observing the behaviour performed by characters on TV (Bandura, 1986). According to Bandura and Walters (1963), besides emulating their parents and friends, children tend to imitate the actions undertaken by characters on TV. Social learning theory outlines that the type of model who portrays the behaviour is important because not all models have the same influences. The desire to be like a specific character, namely wishful identification, and the desire to build a social relationship with the character, namely parasocial interaction, may affect the level of influence that those characters might have on children (Wallack, Grube, Madden, & Breed, 1990). Generally, viewers are more likely to imitate those characters who they wish to identify with and those who they would like to be friend with (Hoffner, 1996). Since children were found to have a higher level of wishful identification and parasocial interaction with characters who behave in a positive way (Hoffner,
1996), if these types of characters were shown to adopt healthy behaviours, this could encourage children in adopting healthy behaviours as well. On the other hand, children were found to be less likely to identify with the villains, (Hoffner, 1996), as villains are always defeated in the end. Since according to the social learning theory, associating unhealthy behaviours with negative outcomes can inhibit viewers to perform the represented behaviour (Moyer-Gusé, 2008), associating bad HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 9
guys, who always lose, with unhealthy behaviours may lead viewers to avoid performing the portrayed behaviours.
The assumption that villains are more likely to display unhealthy behaviours compared to good characters is supported by the findings of the study conducted by Ryan and Hoerrner (2004), who found that in Disney animated films the villains were involved in unhealthy practices, namely tobacco and alcohol consumption, 32 times compared to 13 times among good guys. Additionally, attractive characters, who are extremely likely to be good on the basis of the aforementioned beauty-goodness stereotype, were found to show prosocial behaviours more frequently than unattractive characters (Padilla-Walker et al., 2013). Therefore, it can be assumed that good characters are portrayed as consuming healthy food and beverages and performing physical exercise more often than bad characters, who, in turn, are portrayed as consuming unhealthy food and alcoholic beverages, smoking and adopting a sedentary life more often than good characters.
The first hypothesis of the present study is the following:
H1a: In children animated movies, good characters more often display healthy behaviours than bad characters.
H1b: In children animated movies, bad characters more often display unhealthy behaviours than good characters.
Modality of presentation
Human beings process verbal and visual information separately, through two different channels, namely the auditory channel and the visual or pictorial channel (Mayer & Moreno, 2003).
When watching TV, both auditory and visual channels are activated, as TV combines both images and sounds. Health-related behaviours can be visually, auditory, or auditory and visually represented on TV (Gosselt, van Hoof, & Kokkeler, 2017). The auditory placement consists of characters mentioning a message about alcohol, smoking, nutrition or physical exercise without visually displaying these contents. The visual placement consists of showing these contents without HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 10
mentioning them. Lastly, in the combination of auditory and visual, contents are visible on the screen and they are also mentioned by the characters.
According to Russell (2002), visual and auditory channels convey a different amount of meaning. More specifically, visual channels build the context in which the story is set, while through the auditory channels the script of a story is explicated. Therefore, auditory information is more intrusive and meaningful compared to information that is delivered only visually. However, young children recognize visual information better than auditory information (Hayes & Birnbaum,
1980). Similarly, they were found to remember actions better than dialogues (Gibbons, Anderson,
Smith, Field, & Fischer, 1986). Children’s greater recall of visual information compared to the auditory ones might be due to the degree of complexity and abstraction of the language that is used to present the information orally. More specifically, as outlined by Rolandelli, Wright, Huston, and
Eakins (1991), children may tend to prefer the visual channel if the language used is particularly complicated for them.
Previous content analyses of animated movies for children measured the exposure of tobacco and alcohol only when they were visually portrayed. Therefore, we do not have any information about the auditory depiction of healthy and unhealthy behaviours. However, previous content analyses on television programs show that the majority of the health-related messages were portrayed only visually. More specifically, Roseman, Poor and Stephenson (2014) analysed food references in television programming targeting audiences aged 11 to 14 years old and found that
52% of the food references were strictly visual, while 25% were strictly verbal. Similarly, 90% of the alcohol shown in Dutch movies was visually portrayed (Gosselt et al., 2017).
Considering that animated movies are not developed with the clear purpose to persuade the audience to adopt healthy lifestyles and considering the findings of the previous researches, we can hypothesize that it is more likely that health-related contents are simply shown on the screen, rather than mentioned, or shown and mentioned at the same time.
Therefore, our second hypothesis is the following: HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 11
H2: In animated movies for children, the depiction of both healthy and unhealthy behaviours is more likely to involve the visual channel than the auditory channel or both channels simultaneously.
Valence
The valence, which can be positive, neutral, or negative, regards the attitude that characters visually show towards the portrayed health-related content (Gosselt et al., 2017). Previous studies have shown that the attitude of the characters towards a behaviour influences the attitude of the viewers (Russell & Stern, 2006). Therefore, when children see that the act of smoking is rejected or disapproved by other characters, they will be likely to develop negative attitudes towards smoking.
On the other hand, when they see that the act of performing physical exercise is accepted by other characters, they will perceive the behaviour as positive and they will be likely to develop a positive attitude towards this behaviour. Indeed, through abstract modelling, children acquire general standards for categorizing and judging specific events, as well as personal standards for assessing one’s motivation and conduct (Rosenthal & Zimmerman, 1978). More specifically, when watching a behaviour with a positive or negative valence, for instance being accepted or refused by others while performing the behaviour, viewers extract and apprehend this standard, which, afterwards, will be used to assess new instances of behaviours in other circumstances (Bandura, 2001).
Similarly, representing a positive behaviour with positive valence and a negative behaviour with a negative valence may have an important effect on the audience, as human motivation to perform behaviour is influenced by the outcomes that the behaviour is expected to cause (Bandura, 2003).
When a behaviour is shown as causing unpleasant outcomes or reactions or it is shown as leading to social disapproval, children avoid adopting this behaviour in real life. On the contrary, children are likely to adopt those behaviours, which are portrayed as social approved or as leading to pleasant effects, as we are self-satisfaction and self-worth seeking (Bandura, 2003).
Previous studies have shown that positive behaviours, including helping others and being altruistic, are portrayed with a positive valence in animated movies (Padilla-Walker et al., 2013). HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 12
Therefore, it can be hypothesized that other types of positive behaviours, such as healthy food intake and physical exercise, are depicted with a positive valence as well. Regarding the negative behaviours, it was found that 74% of the animated movies present the tendency to demonize bad behaviours, by using terms as “evil”, “wicked”, “demon”, and “devil” (Fouts, Callan, Piasentin, &
Lawson, 2006). Hence, it can be hypothesized that unhealthy behaviours are depicted with a negative valence as well.
Therefore, the third hypothesis is the following:
H3a: In children’s animated movies, healthy behaviours are more likely to be depicted with a positive valence compared to unhealthy behaviours;
H3b: In children’s animated movies, unhealthy behaviors are more likely to be depicted with a negative valence compared to healthy behaviors.
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 13
Methods
Sample
To test the hypotheses a quantitative content analysis of animated movies was conducted between the 9th and the 24th of May 2019. The population consists of all 367 animated feature films from 1937 to 2018, which were released and/or produced by the 7 major international filming studios, namely Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios,
Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, and Paramount Pictures. According to the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Science (2018), the feature films are those with a running time of at least
40 minutes.
The movies were selected through IMDb, a database which includes all the movies and their specific information. The sampling frame was created by excluding some movies that did not meet the inclusion criteria established for the purpose of this study. Firstly, since the aim of this study is to analyze the content of animated movies, all the movies which were not fully animated, such as live action or animation hybrid movies, were excluded. Secondly, as the present study aims to analyze the representation of healthy and unhealthy behaviours, which are typically performed by humans, all the movies that do not have at least one human being as character were not considered.
Thirdly, as this study has the objective to investigate the representation of healthy and unhealthy behaviours in movies that are normally watched by children, all the animated movies whose recommended audience is more than 14 years old were excluded from the analysis.
After applying the aforementioned criteria, the sampling frame was constituted of 239 movies. From this sampling frame, a sample of 30 units was randomly selected. The sample size was determined taking into consideration the amount of time available for the coding process and the amount of films in the sample frame.
A combination of stratified and systematic sampling technique was used as sampling strategy. The stratified sampling technique allows to have a sampling distribution similar to the population regarding the stratifying criteria, while the systematic sampling technique ensures that HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 14
each units of the sampling frame has the same chances to be included in the sample, selecting the units directly from the sampling frame, without the need of transferring the units in a table of random numbers (Bryman, 2012). Firstly, all the movies in the population, listed in chronological order, were divided within the seven strata, where each studio was a stratum. Within each stratum, a number of movies were systematically selected so that in the sample the number of movies by each studio was proportioned to the number of movies that each studio produced or released in the population. The selection of the movies occurred systematically, to make sure that movies from different decades were selected within each stratum.
The total sample (N = 30) had the following composition: 27% Disney (n = 8), 16% Twenty
Century (n = 5), 2% Metro-Goldwin-Mayer (n = 1), 16% Paramount (n = 5), 9% Sony (n = 2), 10%
Universal Picture (n = 3), 20% Warner Bros (n = 6) (the list of the movies included in the sample is available in Appendix A).
Operationalization
In the present study, the units of analysis are all the scenes where healthy and/or unhealthy behaviours are physically present and/or verbally mentioned. A scene is defined as a section in the movie where there are not any changes in the continuity of the action or any breaks in the interaction between characters caused by other characters or events (Parsons, Rissel, & Douglas,
1999). The variables analysed are the nature of the behaviour, the nature of the character who performs the behaviour, the modality of representation, and the valence of the behaviour. The codebook was self-developed based on the operational definitions of the variables in previous studies. To test the codebook, an animated movie excluded from the sample was analysed (the full codebook is available in Appendix B).
Nature of the behaviours
This variable was computed after the coding by aggregating the scores assigned by the coder to the several indicators that determine the nature of the portrayed behaviours. The indicators of this variable include food intake, alcohol intake, tobacco intake, physical exercise and sedentary HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 15
lifestyle. In order to be coded, health-related behaviours should play an active role in the scene, namely when the character is holding the items, performing the behaviours or referring to them in a dialogue or in a monologue. The number of times the health-related behaviours are portrayed or mentioned by characters in a scene is coded and defined as exposure. For instance, a character drinking a glass of wine counts for one unhealthy exposure. If two characters are drinking wine simultaneously, it counts for two exposures.
Food intake
The definition of food formulated by Kaufamn (1980) was adopted, which considers as food any articles used for food or drinking, including chewing gum (Kaufman, 1980). Since the alcoholic beverages constitute a separate indicator, only the alcohol-free drinks were considered part of this indicator.
The scientific literature agrees on the fact that conducting a healthy diet means eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day (Tobias et al., 2007). Therefore, we can consider fruits and vegetables as the most meaningful representatives of healthy nutrition. On the contrary, eating high-fat and greasy food are the behaviours that characterize an unhealthy diet the most
(Povey, Conner, Sparks, James, & Shepherd, 1998). Therefore, high-fat and greasy food, including chips, fried food, hamburgers, pizza, cookies, cakes, candies, and pastries, were considered unhealthy. All the types of food that are not clearly unhealthy or healthy, such as bread, meat, fish, pasta, eggs, etc., were considered neutral and were not coded. Regarding the non-alcoholic beverage, water, hot tea, tisanes and fresh fruit juices were considered healthy, because they are non-caloric or low-calorie drinks, which have numerous benefits for our health. Specifically, these beverages keep people hydrated, improve blood circulation, and help in digesting and in releasing toxins (WHO, 2012). The non-alcoholic beverages considered as unhealthy were those which contain a high percentage of sodium and sugar, which have detrimental effects (van Kleef &
Dagevos, 2015), among which Coca Cola, Pepsi, Soda, energy drinks, cold tea, and sport drinks. HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 16
Other types of beverages, such as coffee, cappuccino, and milk, were considered neutral and were not coded.
Alcohol intake
Alcoholic drinks were defined as liquids containing ethanol, a substance that causes psychoactive effects (Joint Research Center, 2019). To assess whether a beverage contains any alcohol, a list of the most common alcoholic beverages was provided.
Tobacco intake
Tobacco was defined as a substance which contains nicotine, an addictive psychoactive ingredient, which is meant to be mostly smoked (Al-Ibrahim & Gross, 1990). To assess whether tobacco use is displayed, the list of all the main devices that can be used to consume tobacco was provided, including cigarette, cigar and pipe.
Physical exercise
In order to code physical exercise, the definition by Gietzen, Gollust, Linde, Neumark-
Sztainer, and Eisenberg (2017) was adopted. Physical exercise incidents were defined as “any time characters engaged in an activity that would cause t hem to breathe harder than normal” (Gietzen et al., 2017). In addition, the definition of physical exercises formulated by Caspersen, Powell, and
Christenson (1985) was considered, according to which “exercise is physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and purposive in the sense that improvement or maintenance of one or more components of physical fitness is an objective” (p. 128). Therefore, physical exercises incidents were coded any time that a character engaged in an activity that would cause them to breathe harder than usual with the purpose of being in shape, having fun or winning a competition.
Sedentary lifestyle
Sedentary behaviour was defined as “any waking behaviour characterized by an energy expenditure
≤1.5 METs while in a sitting or reclining posture” (Tremblay et al., 2017, p. 2). In this definition, two aspects are considered, namely energy expenditure and posture. Regarding posture, sedentary behaviour is characterized by three main postures: lying, reclining and sitting. Lying was defined as HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 17
“being in a horizontal position on a supporting surface” (Tremblay et al., 2017, p. 2), for instance lying on a couch or on a bed. Reclining was defined as “a body position between sitting and lying”
(Tremblay et al., 2017, p. 2), for instance lounging on a chair or couch while sedentary. Lastly, sitting was defined as “a position in which one’s weight is supported by one’s buttocks rather than one’s feet, and in which one’s back is upright” (Tremblay et al., 2017, p. 2). To assess the energy expenditure, the rhythm of the breath during the behaviour was considered. If a character lies, sits, or is reclined and its breath is not harder than it would usually be, the behaviour was classified as sedentary.
In order to facilitate the coding procedure, a list of the most popular physical exercises and a list of all the terms associated with the sedentary behaviours was provided.
Modality of presentation
The modality of presentation has three categories. If a character is holding, ingesting, smoking, performing physical exercise or a sedentary behaviour without verbally referring to these behaviours, the behaviours were classified as visually represented. If the health-related contents are only mentioned in dialogues or monologues, without any physical representation on the screen, they were coded as verbally represented. Lastly, if the health-related contents are both verbally and visually represented at the same time (i.e. a character talks about running while he is running), they were coded as verbally and visually represented.
Valence
The valence of a behaviour is defined as positive when the behaviour is associated with positive emotions and outcomes (Gosselt et al., 2017). Specifically, when another character reacts positively to the behaviour in question (i.e. laughing, or encouraging the behaviour), the valence was classified as positive. On the contrary, when the behaviour is associated with negative emotions, rejections, and negative consequences (i.e. accidents, sadness, violence, sneezing, coughing, waving, etc.) the valence was classified as negative (Gosselt et al., 2017). When the HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 18
coder was not able to classify the valence of a health-related behaviour, the valence was considered neutral.
Nature of the characters
This variable has two categories: good characters, and evil characters. Evil characters are those who have the intention to harm or intentionally succeed in psychologically or physically hurt other characters or their environment. If a character is good at the beginning of the movie but then he turns out to be evil, he is considered evil. If a character is evil and then he turns out to be good, he is considered evil as well. All the characters who are not classified as evil are considered good.
Inter-coder reliability
In order to assess the reliability of the present study, the inter-coder reliability test was carried out. A second coder analyzed 10% of the movies in the sample (n = 3). The reliability scores were calculated for all the variables through Krippendorff’s Alpha, as it is a robust measure and suitable for small sample sizes. Its values range from 0, meaning no agreement between coders, to
1, meaning perfect agreement between coders (Krippendorff, 2013). Generally, values above .70 are considered acceptable (Krippendorff, 2013). Our scores range from .63 to .89 indicating that, except for the measurement of valence, the intercoder-reliability is good (see Appendix C).
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 19
Results
Descriptives
With regard to the nature of the behaviours, it was found that 77.6% of the portrayed behaviours were unhealthy, while only 22.4% were healthy (Mo = unhealthy, N = 2311). A paired sample t-test revealed that the difference between healthy and unhealthy behaviours was statistically significant, t (2310) = -31.86, p < .001.
Among the different health-related behaviours, sedentary behaviours were the most often displayed, with 1240 exposures (53.7%), while physical exercise counted only 299 exposures
(12.9%). Unhealthy food intake was portrayed 285 times (12.3%) and healthy food intake consumption was portrayed 218 times (9.4%). Alcohol and tobacco intakes were the least represented behaviours, with 183 (7.9%) and 86 (3.7%) exposures respectively (see Figure 1.).
A one-way repeated measure ANOVA was performed to test whether there was a significant difference between categories. The test indicated that the frequencies of the different types of behaviours significantly differ from each other, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.52, F (5, 2200) = 407.33, p <
2 .001, ηp = .75. Post-hoc test indicated that all the types of behaviours significantly differ from each other, except for alcohol intake which did not significantly differ from healthy food intake, and tobacco intake which did not significantly differ from physical exercise (see Appendix D for mean differences and p-values).
Regarding the nature of the characters, in our sample, 2081 characters had a good nature
(90%), while 230 characters had a bad nature (10%) (N = 2311). A paired sample t-test revealed that good guys significantly differed from bad guys, t (0.23) = 305.18, p <.001.
With regard to the modality of presentation, our sample contained 2027 health-related behaviours visually displayed, 152 health-related behaviours visually and auditory portrayed, and
132 only auditory represented. A one-way repeated measure ANOVA showed that the modalities of presentation significantly differed from each other, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.27, F (2, 2309) = 3187.91, p
2 < .001, ηp = .73. Follow-up comparisons indicated that the visual modality significantly differed HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 20
from the auditory (M difference = .82, p <.001) and both modalities simultaneously (M difference = .81, p
<.001). However, the auditory modality did not significantly differ from both modalities simultaneously.
Last, regarding the valence, our sample contained 1081 health-related behaviours portrayed with a positive valence, 769 portrayed with a negative valence and 461 portrayed with a neutral valence. A one-way repeated measure ANOVA indicated that the difference among positive, negative, and neutral valences was significantly different, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.87, F (2, 2309), =
2 148.30, p <.001 ηp = .11. Post-hoc test indicated that positive valence significantly differed from negative valence (M difference = .13 p <.001) and neutral valence (M difference = .27, p < 001), and negative valence significantly differed from neutral valence (M difference = .13, p < 001).
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0 Sedentary Unehalthy Alcohol Smoking Physical Healthy food behaviour food intake consumption exercise intake Unhealthy behaviours Healthy behaviours
Figure 1. Frequencies of different types of healthy and unhealthy behaviours
Hypothesis 1: nature of the character and nature of the behaviour
In order to test the first hypothesis, namely good characters more often display healthy behaviours than bad characters (H1a), and bad characters more often display unhealthy behaviours than good characters (H1b), all variables regarding healthy and unhealthy behaviours, namely food intake, alcohol intake, tobacco intake, exercise performance and sedentary performance, were aggregated HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 21
into a single categorical variable, namely nature of the behaviour, with two categories: healthy and unhealthy. We found a significant but weak association between the nature of the character and the nature of the behaviour, Chi-squared (1, N = 2311) = 22.51, p < .001, V= .09. The results revealed that good guys were shown to perform healthy behaviours more frequently than bad guys. Among good characters, the percentage of healthy behaviours performances was higher compared to the bad characters. Therefore, H1a was supported, as it was found that positive characters were more likely to perform healthy behaviours than negative characters.
Although negative characters more often displayed unhealthy behaviours than healthy behaviours, they did not display unhealthy behaviours more often than positive characters. Instead, the number of unhealthy behaviours performed by positive characters was higher compared to the number of unhealthy behaviours performed by negative characters (see Table 1). Therefore, we could not find any supports for H1b, as our results revealed that negative characters did not more often perform unhealthy behaviours than positive characters.
Table 1.
Nature of characters by nature of behaviours
Nature of behaviours
Nature of characters Healthy Unhealthy
Good 95.5% (494) 88.5% (1587)
Bad 4.4 % (23) 11.5% (207)
Total (nature 100% (517) 100% (1794) behaviours)
Hypothesis 2: nature of the behaviour and modality of presentation
In order to test the second hypothesis, namely whether the depiction of both healthy and unhealthy behaviours is more likely to involve the visual channel than the auditory channel or both channels at the same time, a Chi-square test was performed. HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 22
We found a significant but weak association between the health-related behaviours and the modality of presentation, Chi-squared (2, N = 2311) = 79.06, p < .001, V = .18. Both healthy and unhealthy behaviours were found to be more likely to be displayed only visually, than only auditory or visually and auditory at the same time. Among the health-related behaviours displayed, 87.7% were visually portrayed, while only 5.7% were auditory portrayed and 6.6% were portrayed through both channels (see Table 2). Therefore, the second hypothesis is supported, as health-related behaviours involved the visual channel more often than the other channels.
Table 2.
Modality of presentation by nature of behaviour.
Health-related behaviour
Modality Healthy Unhealthy Total (modality of presentation)
Visual 76.4% (395) 91% (1632) 87.7% (2027)
Auditory 10.8% (56) 4.2% (76) 5.7% (132)
Visual and auditory 12.8% (66) 4.8% (86) 6.6% (152)
Total (health-related 100% (517) 100% (1794) 100% (2311) behaviours)
Hypothesis 3: Nature of the behaviour and valence of the behaviour
In order to test the third hypothesis, namely whether healthy behaviours are more likely to be depicted with a positive valence compared to unhealthy behaviours (H3a), and whether unhealthy behaviours are more likely to be depicted with a negative valence compared to healthy behaviours (H3b) a Chi-squared test was conducted.
The analysis revealed that there is a significant but weak association between nature of behaviours and their valence, Chi-squared (1, N = 1850) =89.87, p <.001, V = .22. The valence of the healthy behaviours was more often positive than the valence of unhealthy behaviours.
Therefore, H3a is supported, as healthy behaviours were more likely to be depicted with a positive HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 23
valence. The analysis also showed that the valence of unhealthy behaviours was more than twice as often to be negative than the valence of healthy behaviours. Therefore, we found support for H3b
(see Table 3).
In conclusion, the third hypothesis is supported, as healthy behaviours were found to be more likely to have a positive valence than unhealthy behaviours (H3a), and unhealthy behaviours were more likely to have a negative valence than healthy behaviours (H3b).
Table 3.
Valence by nature of behaviour
Nature of behaviour
Valence Healthy Unhealthy Total (valence)
Positive 77.3% (355) 52.2% (726) 75.2% (1081)
Negative 22.7% (104) 47.8% (665) 24.8% (769)
Total (health-related 100% (459) 100% (1391) 100% (1850) behaviours)
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 24
Discussion
The present study aimed to answer the following research question: how are healthy and unhealthy behaviours represented in animated movies for children from 1937 to 2018?
My results revealed that unhealthy behaviours were much more frequently represented than healthy behaviours. In particular, the number of scenes in which characters adopted a sedentary lifestyle was much higher than the number of scenes in which characters were shown performing physical exercise. Similarly, many characters more often tended to consume junk food rather than fruits and vegetables, and some characters were found consuming alcohol and tobacco.
The first part of my first hypothesis stated that good characters more often perform healthy behaviours than bad characters. We found that good characters were more likely to perform healthy behaviours than bad characters. However, the second part of my first hypothesis stated that negative characters more often perform unhealthy behaviours than positive characters. According to my study, villains did not perform more often unhealthy behaviours compared to good guys.
My second hypothesis stated that the representation of health-related behaviours was more likely to involve the visual channel rather than the auditory channel or both channels simultaneously. I indeed found that the health-related behaviours were more often portrayed visually rather than auditory or visually and auditory.
Last, the first part of my third hypothesis stated that healthy behaviours were more likely to be depicted with a positive valence compared to unhealthy behaviours. My results showed that healthy behaviours more often were depicted with a positive valence, compared to unhealthy behaviours. The second part of my third hypothesis stated that unhealthy behaviours were more likely to be depicted with a negative valence than healthy behaviours. According to my results, unhealthy behaviours were more often represented with negative valence compared to healthy behaviours.
In sum, to answer my research question, this study shows that in animated movies unhealthy behaviours are more represented than healthy ones. Good characters more often perform both HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 25
healthy and unhealthy behaviours compared to bad characters. Healthy and unhealthy behaviours are usually displayed visually. Furthermore, healthy behaviours are more likely to be shown with a positive valence than unhealthy behaviours, which, in turn, are more likely to be shown with a negative valence.
Discussion of the main findings
Regarding the frequency of the behaviours, my findings are partly in line with previous studies, which also found a high frequency of unhealthy behaviours in animated movies for children
(Goldstein et al., 1999; Ryan & Hoerrner, 2004; Yokota & Thompson, 2001). However, my study takes a step forward, by analyzing the presence of healthy behaviours. Although healthy behaviours were underrepresented compared to unhealthy behaviours, we found several examples of healthy food and physical exercise. Therefore, animated movies are not only sources of positive and prosocial behaviours, such as helping and encouraging others (Padilla-Walker at al., 2013), but they portray valid examples of healthy behaviours as well. Among the healthy behaviours analysed, physical exercise was the most frequently represented. This is not in line with previous studies about health-related contents on TV, as Byrd-Bredbenner et al. (2003) found that in TV programs for children, healthy food intake was the most represented healthy behaviour, at least compared to physical exercise, which was displayed only in 8% of the scenes. This difference in results might be caused by the different type of medium content. Previous studies analysed drama, comedies, dramedies, real-life and news programs (Byrd-Bredbenner et al., 2003), while this study focuses on animated movies. It might be possible that in animated movies there are more action scenes compared to other types of programs, especially considering that there are many singing scenes, where characters are likely to dance, run, or jump with the music.
Regarding the nature of the characters that performed the health-related behaviours, we found that good characters more often performed both healthy and unhealthy behaviours than villains. Therefore, our results are only partially in line with the theoretical definition of good and bad characters. On the one hand, we found support for the premise that good characters should HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 26
show beneficial lifestyles (Bandura, 2003), as we found that they more often show healthy behaviours than villains. On the other hand, according to our findings, bad guys do not show detrimental lifestyles more often than good guys; they were, in fact, less likely to show unhealthy behaviours than good guys.
Our findings contradict the findings of previous studies, according to which villains were involved in unhealthy practices more often or as much as good guys (Goldstein et al., 1999; Ryan &
Hoerrner, 2004; Thompson & Yokota, 2001). Importantly, this contradictory result could be explained by the number of good guys coded in our sample, which was much higher than the number of villains. As in our sample we found that the presence of positive characters was almost ten times as much as the presence of negative characters, the chance of coding both healthy and unhealthy behaviours was greater for good guys compared to bad guys. Indeed, considering the amount of health-related behaviours in proportion to the number of positive and negative characters coded, it was found that negative characters were proportionally more likely to perform unhealthy behaviours than positive characters.
Regarding the modality of presentation, although information is better recalled when it involves the auditory and the visual channel simultaneously (Mayer & Moreno, 2003), we found that health-related contents are more often portrayed visually than verbally or visually and verbally simultaneously. Since the target audience is constituted by children, who were found to be more likely to recognize and remember visual rather than auditory information (Gibbons et al., 1986;
Hayes & Birnbaum, 1980), both healthy and unhealthy behaviours have a great chance to be noticed and remembered by a young audience. As my findings about the modality of presentation are in line with previous studies conducted on TV programs and Dutch movies (Gosselt et al., 2017; Roseman et al., 2014), we can deduct that health-related contents are usually portrayed in a similar modality even in a different genre, such as animated movies.
Regarding the valence shown while portraying the health-related behaviours, my findings are in line with the results of the study conducted by Padilla-Walker et al. (2013), according to HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 27
which positive behaviours were portrayed with a positive valence in animated movies for children.
Similarly, Fouts et al. (2006) found that negative behaviours were described with negative words.
Since we found that unhealthy behaviours were more frequently depicted with a negative valence, we can deduct that the detrimental nature of unhealthy behaviours is recognized and treated as such by film producers.
Overall, as people make sense of the world through archetypes, which are easily retrievable in animated movies (Jung, 1970), watching heroes more often performing healthy behaviours compared to villains could make children perceive those behaviours as positive. Since children may learn vicariously by watching TV (Bandura, 1986), and they tend to identify more with positive characters compared to villains (Hoffner, 1996), children might imitate healthy behaviours because they watch their favorite characters performing them, as our study revealed that positive characters more often perform healthy behaviours compared to negative characters. Moreover, my results are in line with Bandura’s theory, as my study showed that the nature of the behaviours is positively associated with their valence. As children formulate standards based on the outcomes of the behaviours they watch on TV and use these standards to assess such behaviours in the real world, children who watch healthy behaviours associated with pleasant outcomes might be more likely to perform them in the real life (Bandura, 2001). On the contrary, when they watch unhealthy behaviours associated with negative outcomes they might be more likely to avoid performing them
(Bandura, 2001)
Study limitations and suggestions for future studies
The present study is not without shortcomings. Firstly, we aimed to analyze recent movies as well as older ones, as there are many old movies that are still popular among children. Since the movies were randomly selected and we did not exclude less popular movies from the sample framing, it might be possible that we also analysed movies that are not popular nowadays. The analysis of those less popular movies would not be that relevant, as children are not likely to watch those movies anymore. In addition, I did not investigate whether there were any differences in the HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 28
representation of health-related behaviours across time. This could have affected our results because the social perception of healthy and unhealthy behaviours has changed over time. For instance, the detrimental effects of tobacco consumption were scientifically demonstrated only in the 1950s
(Proctor, 2012). Therefore, it may be possible that many unhealthy behaviours were more often portrayed in older movies than in the newest ones because those behaviours were not perceived as detrimental. Follow-up studies could analyse whether and how there are any changes in the representation of health-related behaviours over time.
Regarding nutrition, we mainly focused on vegetables and fruits as healthy food intakes, and junk-food as unhealthy food intake, disregarding many other types of food which can be considered healthy or unhealthy based on the number of intakes and the modality of preparation. This could have affected my results, as I did not code many food intakes that were clearly unhealthy only because characters were not consuming junk-food. I probably would have found much more healthy and unhealthy exposures if other types of food were also considered. Future studies could take into consideration all these aspects to develop more detailed criteria to establish whether food is healthy or unhealthy. In this way, a clearer picture of the representation of healthy and unhealthy food intake, which does not involve fruits and vegetables and junk-food exclusively, would be provided.
Lastly, the present study has a descriptive nature, as it aims to analyze how health-related behaviours are represented in animated movies, but it does not investigate the effects that the exposure to such behaviours may have on the audience. Therefore, it would be interesting to investigate whether the representation of healthy and unhealthy behaviours, the nature of the characters that perform them, their modality of presentation and their valence have any effects on children’s behaviours at the short and long term. An experiment could reveal whether children modify their food preference or their attitude towards exercise right after being exposed to animated movies, by manipulating the nature of the characters performing the behaviours, the nature of the behaviours, the modality of presentation, and the valence of the behaviours portrayed.
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 29
Theoretical and societal implications
To conclude, our results are both scientifically and socially relevant. Regarding the scientific relevance, my study extends the scientific knowledge about the health-related behaviours portrayed on TV by providing evidence that in addition to tobacco and alcohol consumption, also other types of unhealthy behaviours, such as sedentary lifestyle and fatty-food intake, are widely represented, at least in animated movies. Additionally, animated movies contain valid examples of healthy behaviours, associated most of the time with a positive valence. Therefore, on the one hand, I provide consistency with previous studies, while on the other I provide cues for follow-up studies, that could examine the effects such exposures may have on the audience. Interestingly, the present study shows that animated movies are narratives that can be used with an educational purpose.
Although unhealthy behaviours are more represented than the healthy ones, they are associated with a negative valence, which might inhibit children to perform them (Bandura, 2001). On the other hand, as healthy behaviours are often depicted with a positive valence, children might be likely to perform them. With regard to the nature of the characters that perform health-related behaviours, my study is in line with the theoretical definition of positive and negative characters. Positive characters should perform beneficial lifestyles, which results in our findings, while negative characters should perform detrimental lifestyles, which results in our findings if we consider the proportion instead of the actual frequency of the coded characters (Bandura, 1986).
With regard to the societal relevance, parents and educators have the chance to learn that the animated movies watched by their children are powerful sources of unhealthy and, to a lesser extent, healthy behaviours. However, this should not be alarming, as the representation of health- related behaviours follows some dynamics that should encourage children to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, adults should not discourage animated movies exposure, as children are likely to watch healthy behaviours performed by positive characters, with whom they are likely to identify with. Thus, they would be more likely to imitate them when performing healthy behaviours.
Furthermore, as the nature of the behaviours is positively associated with their valence, animated HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 30
movies could have positive effects on children’s lifestyle, as children could be aware that performing healthy behaviours can have positive consequences, while performing unhealthy behaviours may lead to negative consequences. However, children may not notice the link between the portrayed behaviour and its valence. For these reasons, adults’ supervision is important, as they could reveal their children inner meanings or important elements that children are not able to take by themselves.
Overall, children should not be discouraged to watch animated movies, without exceeding the limits of hours of television exposures recommended by pediatrics, namely not more than two hours per day (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010). Additionally, adults should supervise their children as much as possible, as they could make children notice the valence associated to the behaviours, in order to be sure that the message is processed in the correct way by the children.
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 31
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HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 38
APPENDIX A – Sample
Title of the movie Studio Year of released
1 All Dogs Go to Heaven Metro-Goldwin-Mayer 1989
2 Over the Hedge Paramount Picture 2006
3 Monsters vs. Alien Paramount Picture 2009
4 The Adventures of Tintin Paramount Picture 2011
5 The Little Prince Paramount Picture 2015
6 Smurfs: The Lost Village Paramount Picture 2017
7 Metropolis Sony 2001
8 The Illusionist Sony 2010
9 Anastasia Twenty Century Fox 1997
10 Asterix Conquers America Twenty Century Fox 1994
11 Fantastic Mr. Fox Twenty Century Fox 2009
12 Mr. Peabody & Sherman Twenty Century Fox 2014
13 The Peanuts Movie Twenty Century Fox 2015
14 Coraline Universal Picture 2009
15 Underdogs Universal Picture 2013
16 Despicable Me 3 Universal Picture 2017
17 Cinderella Walt Disney & Pixar 1950
18 The Little Mermaid Walt Disney & Pixar 1989
19 Hercules Walt Disney & Pixar 1997
20 Piglet’s Big Movie Walt Disney & Pixar 2003
21 Meet the Robinsons Walt Disney & Pixar 2007
22 The Princess and the Frog Walt Disney & Pixar 2009 HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 39
23 The Brave Walt Disney & Pixar 2013
24 Inside Out Walt Disney & Pixar 2015
25 Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: Warner Bros 1982
1001 Rabbit Tales
26 The Swan Princess Warner Bros 1994
27 Thumbelina Warner Bros 1994
28 Corpse Bride Warner Bros 2005
29 The Nut Job Warner Bros 2014
30 Batman and Harley Quinn Warner Bros 2017
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 40
APPENDIX B – Codebook
Part 1- Introduction and general guidelines
Analysis of animated movies for children where there at least one of the characters is a
human being, from 1937 to 2018.
Unit of analysis: scenes where one of the following health-related contents are shown
and/or mentioned:
- Food and non-alcoholic beverages,
- Alcoholic beverages,
- Tobacco consumption,
- Physical exercise,
- Sedentary behaviours.
IMPORTANT! In this analysis, only health-related contents that are ACTIVELY present are
analyzed. Actively present means that one or more characters mention them in a dialogue or in a
monologue, they hold/prepare/consume a piece of food, a smoking device, a beverage, or
perform/mention a physical exercise/sedentary behaviour. If you encounter any of the health-
related content on the list that does not play an active role, (i.e. you can see them on the
background as decoration elements) do not code them.
Similarly, if you see characters that are animals and do not talk at all, do not code them.
Exposure: we define as an exposure every time a health-related content is actively
shown/mentioned by one or more character during a scene. If two or three characters are
performing/mentioning the behaviour simultaneously, it counts for 2 or 3 exposure. If more
than 3 characters are performing the behaviour simultaneously (i.e. eating a cake during a
party), make sure to pause the movie and count the exact number of characters. HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 41
Scene: it is considered as a scene every point in the film where the action stays in one place
for a continuous period of time and the following elements stay constant: (1) Characters, (2)
Background, (3) Situation. When at least one of the three elements, such as the character,
the background and/or the situation, changes, we have a different scene. Parts where the
characters sing a song are considered as one unique scene.
Per each scene in which the health-related contents are present, you have to indicate:
1. The nature of the behaviour, by filling the information next to the several indicators (a)
food intake= 1 (healthy), 2 (unhealthy); (b) alcohol intake = 1 (yes), (c) tobacco intake = 1
(yes), (d) physical exercises = 1 (yes), (e) sedentary behaviour = 1(yes).
2. Per each exposure, you have to indicate the modality of presentation = (1) visual, (2)
verbal, (3) visual + verbal
3. Per each exposure, you have to indicate the valence of the behaviour = (1) positive, (2)
negative, (3) neutral.
4. Per each exposure, you have to indicate the character who is performing/mentioning the
behaviour, by inserting the name of the character (or a brief description) and the nature of
the character (1= evil, 2=good). Please, code the nature of each character at the end of the
movie.
If you see a character performing the same behaviour in two different scenes, please code it
twice. If the scene remains the same, please code it only once.
Part 2- Administrative variables
A.1. Film ID
Explanation: a list with the 30 titles of the movies is provided below. Each title is associated
with a specific ID number from 01 to 30. Based on the movie that you have to analyze,
indicate the correspondent number in the code sheet.
Title of the Movie ID number Cinderella 01 The Little Mermaid 02 HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 42
Hercules 03 Piglet’s Big Movie 04 Meet the Robinsons 05 The Princess and the Frog 06 Inside Out 07 The Brave 08 Asterix conquers America 09 Fantastic Mr. Fox 10 Mr. Peabody & Sherman 11 The Peanuts movie 12 All Dogs go to Heaven 13 Over the Hedge 14 Monsters vs Aliens 15 The Adventures of Tintin 16 The Little Prince 17 Metropolis 18 The Illusionist 19 Smurfs: The Lost Village 20 Coraline 21 Underdogs 22 Despicable Me 3 23 Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales 24 Thumbelina 25 The Swan Princess 26 Corpse Bride 27 Nut Job 28 Batman & Harley Queen 29 Anastasia 30
A.2. Date
Explanation: fill in the date that the coding form was completed in the following format:
dd/mm/yyyy
A.3. Character Name
Explanation: Once you see a character performing or mentioning health-related behaviour,
specify the correspondent name in the space provided.
If more than one character is performing the same behaviour in the same scene, specify the
name of all the characters. If the name of the character is unknown, try to describe the
character with few words (i.e. the old man that is smoking a pipe…). HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 43
If it is a group exposure (more than 3 characters involved), specify the name of the main
character, namely the character that talk is in the foreground.
Part 3 – Variables
V1. Nature of the behaviour
Explanation: a behaviour is unhealthy when it can cause detrimental effects. More
specifically, a behaviour has to be coded as unhealthy when:
- Unhealthy food, including non-alcoholic beverages, is displayed and/or mentioned
- Alcoholic beverages are displayed and/or mentioned
- Tobacco is displayed and/or mentioned
- Sedentary behaviour is displayed and/or mentioned.
A behaviour is healthy when it causes positive effects. More specifically, in this study a
behaviour has to be coded as healthy when:
- Healthy food, including healthy beverages, is displayed and/or mentioned
- Physical activity is displayed and/or mentioned
Answer to the following question when you see/hear any article used for food or drinking,
including chewing gum and excluding alcoholic beverages.
I would specify the healthy and unhealthy behaviors in your codebook.
V1.a. Food intake: 1 (healthy), 0 (unhealthy).
Code this variable when you see/hear any article used for food or drinking, including
chewing gum and excluding alcoholic beverages.
If you see/hear about medicines and magic potions, do not code them.
Select 1 =healthy if the food consists of:
- Only fruit, fresh or dried, including nuts (i.e. apple, pineapple, banana, mango,
strawberry, blackberry, etc.).
- Only raw or boiled vegetables (i.e. broccoli, salad, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes,
etc.) HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 44
- Only legumes (beans, lentils, etc.)
- A mix of two or more of the aforementioned types of food (i.e vegetables + legumes,
i.e. soups).
- Mineral water
- Hot tea/Herbal infusion
- Fresh fruit juice (i.e. orange juice, smoothies).
Select 0 = unhealthy if the food consists of:
- Greasy food (fries, arancini, cheeps, kebab, pizza, hamburgers, hotdogs)
- Snacks, sweets and pastries (candies, cakes, pies, tarts, ice-creams, biscuits, puddings,
cotton candy).
V1.b. Alcohol intake: 1 (yes)
Explanation: write a “1” (=yes) next to the “Alcohol intake” variable when you see/hear
about one of the following beverages:
- Wine
- Prosecco/Champagne
- Beer
- Cider
- Liquors and alcoholic cocktails
V1.c. Tobacco intake: (1) yes
Explanation: write a “1” (=yes) next to the “Tobacco intake” variable when you see/hear
about one of the following smoking devices:
- Cigarettes (bulk or in a package)
- Pipes (bulk or in a package)
- Cigars (bulk or in a package)
And/or when you hear someone mentioning the act or the possibility to smoke.
V.1.d. Physical exercises: Do you see/hear about physical exercises? HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 45
Definition: performing physical exercises means performing muscular and skeletal
movements without any other purposes than being in shape and/or winning a competition,
and/or having fun. (i.e. if you see a character running from another to save his life, do not
code it as physical exercise, if you see a character fighting to steal a treasure, do not code it
as physical exercise).
Write “1” (= yes) when:
a. You see characters breathing harder than normal (i.e. running, jumping, climbing,
fighting, heavy lifting, playing some sports, etc.) without any other purposes than being in
shape and/or having fun
b. You hear character mentioning any types of sports.
Comprehensive list of sports in alphabetical order that you can see/hear about:
Individual sports
Archery
Association Croquet
Badminton
Biathlon
Birling
Boccie
Bodybuilding
Boules
Bowling
Bowls
Boxing
Croquet
Cross-Country
Dance HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 46
Darts
Deck Tennis
Diving
Fencing
Golf
Gymnastics
Handball
Horseshoe Pitching
Jai Alai
Martial Arts
Mountaineering
Orienteering
Pall-Mall
Pelota
Pentathlon
Quoits
Rackets
Racquetball
Real Tennis
Shooting
Shuffleboard
Skating
Skibobbing
Skiing
Snowboarding
Squash Rackets HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 47
Squash Tennis
Swimming
Synchronized Swimming
Tennis (Paddle Tennis, Table Tennis)
Track-And-Field Sports/Athletics (Decathlon, Discus Throw, Hammer Throw, Javelin
Throw, Long Jump, High Jump, Running, Marathon, Etc.)
Triathlon
Underwater Diving
Weightlifting
Wrestling
Team Sports
Association Croquet
Badminton
Bandy
Baseball
Basketball
Biathlon
Boccie
Boules
Bowling
Bowls
Cricket
Croquet
Cross-Country
Curling
Darts HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 48
Deck Tennis
Eisstockschiessen
Field Hockey
Fives
Football
Gymnastics
Handball
Hooverball
Horseshoe Pitching
Hurling
Ice Hockey
Jai Alai
Kabaddi
Korfball
Lacrosse
Netball
Orienteering
Pelota
Rackets
Racquetball
Real Tennis
Rounders
Skating
Skiing
Shinty
Shuffleboard HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 49
Softball
Squash Rackets
Swimming
Synchronized Swimming
Table Tennis
Team Handball
Tennis
Track-And-Field Sports/Athletics
Relay Race
Triathlon
Tug-Of-War
Volleyball
Water Polo
V.1.e. Sedentary behaviours: Do you see/hear about sedentary behaviours?
Write “1” (=yes) when:
a. You see an awake character sitting, or lying, or reclining, who is breathing normally,
and he is not weaving what is weaving? (i.e. watching TV, playing with a videogame,
working, reading a book, studying, doing the homework, playing a musical instrument while
sitting, painting, drawing, talking on the sofa, etc.)
b. You hear about sedentary in a dialogue/monologue.
Terms related to sedentary: lazy, indolent, slothful, work-shy, shiftless, loafing, inactive,
inert, sluggish, lethargic, languorous, listless, torpid, desk-bound, idle, etc.
N.B. If the character is eating, smoking or drinking something while sitting, while lying,
reclining, do not code the behaviour as sedentary, but focus on the food/drink/tobacco intake HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 50
instead, it counts as a multiple code, so you need to fill in the column about sedentary
behaviour and the column about smoking, for instance.
N.B. If you see characters that are sedentary because they cannot walk as they are babies, do
not code their behaviour as sedentary.
V.2. Modality of presentation
Explanation: how the health-related contents are presented. Per each behaviour that you
code, you need to indicate the modality.
Indicate:
(1) Visual if the behaviour is displayed on the screen,
(2) Verbal if the behaviour is mentioned,
(3) visual + verbal if the behaviour is mentioned and displayed at the same time.
V.3. Valence: How is the valence of the behaviours?
Explanation: the valence indicates how the character is shown while performing the
behaviour in question. The valence can be (1) positive, (2) negative, (3) neutral.
Some examples: if a character looks happy while eating strawberry the valence of the
behaviour is positive. If he sneezes while he is smoking or if someone else sneezes while he
is smoking, the valence is negative.
To determine whether the valence is positive, negative, or neutral, you have to look at:
- The sentiment of the character/characters while portraying the behaviour.
- The consequences/outcomes that the portrayed behaviour is shown to have on the character
that performed the behaviour or on other characters.
Choose “Positive Valence” (1) IF:
a. While performing the behaviour, the sentiment in the scene is perceived as pleasant.
While performing/mentioning the behaviour, all the characters in the scene show pleasant
emotions (i.e. the character look happy, excited, thrilled, interested, pleasantly surprised,
confident, proud, enthusiastic, inspired, amused, love etc.) HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 51
AND/OR
b. The behaviour generates pleasant reactions and or outcomes to the character that
performs it. While performing the behaviour, all the other characters that are present in the
scene have pleasant reactions/outcomes as well, or they do not show any reactions/outcomes
(i.e. being applauded, being encouraged, having fun, celebrating, laughing, joking, smiling,
etc.)
Choose “Negative Valence” (2) IF:
a. While one of the characters is performing/mentioning/has the intention to perform a
behaviour, you perceive unpleasant sentiment in the scene. Additionally, while
performing/mentioning the behaviour, at least one character shows unpleasant emotions (i.e.
sadness, fear, disgust, anger, indignation, envy, etc.)
AND/OR
b. The behaviour generate unpleasant reaction and/or outcomes to at least one character
in the scene (i.e. sneezing, coughing, getting hurt, vomiting, being reprimanded, being
marginalized, being mocked, etc.)
Choose “neutral” (3) if you cannot determine which type of valance is it.
V.4. Nature of the character: Is the character who is performing/has the intention to perform
the behaviour evil or good?
Explanation: evil characters are those who have the intention to harm or intentionally
succeed in psychologically or physically hurt the other characters or their environment. If a
character is good at the beginning of the movie but then he turns out to be evil, then he is
considered evil. If a character is evil and then he turns out to be good, he is considered evil
as well. All the characters who are not classified as evil are considered good.
N.B. Wait for the movie to be ended to code the nature of each character.
Report in the coding sheet whether the character is: evil (1) good (2).
HEALTH RELATED BEHAVIOURS IN ANIMATED MOVIES 52
APPENDIX C - The inter-coder reliability measurements for the four variables
Variable Krippendorff’s α
Nature of the character .889
Nature of the behaviour .881
Modality of presentation .738
Valence .632
APPENDIX D – Mean differences and p-values for the different types of behaviours
Groups M difference P-values Alcohol intake Tobacco intake .05 .00* Alcohol intake Physical exercise .06 .00* Alcohol intake Sedentary behaviour .10 .00* Alcohol intake Healthy food intake -.01 1.00 Alcohol intake Unhealthy food intake -.38 .00* Tobacco intake Physical exercise .01 1.00 Tobacco intake Sedentary behaviour .04 .00* Tobacco intake Healthy food intake -.06 .00* Tobacco intake Unhealthy food intake -.44 .00* Physical exercise Sedentary behaviour .03 .00* Physical exercise Healthy food intake -.07 .00* Physical exercise Unhealthy food intake -.45 .00* Sedentary behaviour Healthy food intake -.10 .00* Sedentary behaviour Unhealthy food intake -.48 .00* Healthy food intake Unhealthy food intake -.38 .00* *the difference between the two groups is statistically significant, p <.05.