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