Literature Review: Unhealthy Food Sponsorship in Junior Sports Clubs

This literature review examines the impact and attitudes surrounding unhealthy food sponsorships within junior sports clubs, focusing on the Australian context. It explores how such sponsorships influence children's food choices and health, highlighting the dominance of unhealthy food industries in sports sponsorship. The study employs a quantitative methodology, surveying parents to understand their perspectives on the issue and potential policy interventions. Key findings reveal that parents generally disapprove of unhealthy sponsorships and support policies restricting them, including alternative funding models. The review discusses the limitations of the methodology, such as the absence of qualitative data, and emphasizes the need for comprehensive policies to mitigate the negative effects of unhealthy food advertising on children's health. The study concludes by justifying the need for restrictions on unhealthy sponsorships to protect children's well-being and promote healthier attitudes towards food.

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
The impact and attitude on youth’s exposure to unhealthy food sponsorships within junior sports clubs.
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2LITERATURE REVIEW
Background
According to the current scenario of Australia as well as the global report the number of the obese
children has been increasing rapidly due to high intake of unhealthy and junk foods. However, in the
junior sports club the youth exposures are totally opposed to the rapid sponsorship of the unhealthy food
as it hampers the health of a child (1). Unhealthy food marketing affects the food choice of the children.
However, in Australia the sports sponsorship landscape is dominated by the industries those produce
unhealthy food or sell junk foods. Such unhealthy sports sponsorship affects the health of the children in a
sports club. The community thinks that this unhealthy sports sponsorship leaves a negative impact on the
children health. Fast food sponsorship of junior sports leads the children to show unhealthy attitude by
taking the huge amount of junk food that affects their fitness.
Many literatures reveal such problem regarding the unhealthy sponsorship in the junior sports
club, however, there is no specific account of the policy or rules to mitigate the negative effect of such
unhealthy sports sponsorship. This current literature will reveal a critical analysis of the attitude of youth
exposure towards the unhealthy sports sponsorship and development of proper policy to fulfill the gap of
the previous literature.
Methodology
The current study focuses on the attitude of the youth exposure, parents and the community
towards the unhealthy food sponsorship in the junior sports club. This study includes random sampling
method with the nth selection process. Search strategy includes inclusion and exclusion criteria. Medline
database is used to extract the relevant articles regarding this topic. Parents are selected for the survey
who have children aged 5 to 16 years and are associated with the organized sports. Questionnaires are
developed for the survey that ensures that quantitative data collection method has been selected in this
study. In order to limit the unhealthy sponsorship, the questionnaires are given to the parents of the
children. The questionnaires are based on the demographic characteristics and the specific policies to
reduce the unhealthy food sponsorship in the junior sports club. Quantitative data collection method is
beneficial to collect data from a huge population. However, parents are the main mentors of the student
thus the involvement of the parents in the survey is a vital approach to such study to understand the
impact of unhealthy food sponsorship in the junior sports club. This study only includes the quantitative
method while the use of qualitative method will be effective to obtain more accurate data (1). However,
the inclusion and the exclusion criteria are beneficial to select the relevant article over the selected topic.
Providing questionnaire is a beneficial approach to understand the perspectives of the participants in the
survey.
Findings
The above study generates the vital elements to understand the attitude of the youth exposures
towards the unhealthy sponsorship in the junior sports club. However, it has been found that the
advertisement of the unhealthy food and beverage by the junk food manufacturers during the sports
sponsorship affects the behavior of the children towards the food intake (2). However, the children get
attracted easily towards the unhealthy foods through such sponsorship during their sports event that
leaves a negative effect on their health.
According to the parents and other youth exposure advertisement of the unhealthy food during
the sports event of the junior club should be prohibited as it affects the children health. According to the
survey report, most parents have shown the positive attitude toward the policies that are involved in
prohibiting the unhealthy sports sponsorship. However, the sports clubs should implement the policies
that restrict the alcohol companies to sponsor during the sports (3). Hence, it can be found that parents
have totally disagreed with the unhealthy sponsorship and they support the policies that are associated

3LITERATURE REVIEW
with decreasing such unhealthy sponsorship. The parent provides continuous support to the policies
associated with restriction of unhealthy sports sponsorship despite the increased sports fees. From these
findings, it has been addressed that the parents are agreed to provide increased sports fees if the sports
club establish the restriction policy to inhibit the unhealthy sports sponsorship (4).
The alternative funding model is supported by the youth exposure as well as by the parents that
allow the children to participate in a sport by taking healthy attitude (5). This alternative funding model
allows the unhealthy beverage, alcohol and the food companies to sponsor the sport without showing any
visible barding of their product in the sports premises and sports club. According to the youth exposure,
this policy will enable the sports club to get a better funding for their sports event and the children will
not influence by the unhealthy advertisement of the food (6). However, as per the survey report, the
increased sports fees due to the restriction of unhealthy sports sponsorship create the number of
participants in the junior sports club. For this reason, the establishment of the alternative funding policy is
supported by the youth exposure and the parents (7). This policy makes a distance between the sports club
and the sponsors, as a result, the children can be kept aside from the marketing effect of such unhealthy
food advertisement (8).
Another example, of community and industry combination for the improvement of the children
health, is the Stephanic Alexender Kitchen Garden Foundation, which is a non-profit organization
provides the fund to the Australian sports club to give a better life to children (9). However, the sampling
and the survey method are considered as the strength of such current study. The random sampling method
and the survey form a huge population increase the awareness of the sponsorship. However, according to
the children, those are the participants of the sports club reveal that many companies provide them sports
drink, which is comfortable for them. This ensures that the children are highly motivated with the
advertisement of the junk foods. Hence, it is important for the sports club to limit the unhealthy sponsor
by making proper restriction policies. As per the children, the elite sports sponsors are exciting and have
developed a perfect brand image.
This has gained the trust of the children. Advertisement of the food companies encourages the
children to buy their product during the sporting event. On the other hand, the random sampling method
that is used in this survey is cost effective and this sampling method is valid in order to take the
telephonic survey. This survey reveals a brief understanding regarding the importance of prohibiting the
unhealthy advertisement of food and beverages in the sports event and the club premises (10). The most
important thing that is observed from the above finding is the use alternative funding model that is a good
policy as it enables the sports club to get sponsorship from the food manufacturer without affecting the
health of the student. This restricts the advertisement process of the junk food during the club premises as
no banner will be held in the club from which the children can be influenced towards the junk food.
Limitation of the review
The research methodology is good as the quantitative research method has been selected in this
research (11). However, random sampling method and the survey is good for this study to gather huge
information over the attitude of youth exposure to the unhealthy sports sponsorship. However, there is no
account of the qualitative study in this methodology that is a weakness of such methodology. It is
important for the all research study to use both quantitative and qualitative study to get accurate data from
the participants. This minimizes the bias in the research methodology. However, the qualitative survey
leads the study to understand the perception of the concerned persons. The survey is conducted by
involving the parents and the children in order to get data about the unhealthy sports sponsorship while
there is no survey of the sponsors as it is important to understand the perspectives of the sponsors
regarding this situation. However, the review method is well in this study but it can be better if more
evidence will be considered in this study. This literature review highlights on the policies that are

4LITERATURE REVIEW
effective for the restriction of unhealthy food advertisement while there is very small account of such
policies that is a major drawback of such review.
Justification
The proposed project is associated with the impact and the attitude of the youth exposure to
unhealthy food sponsorship within the junior sports club. However, the above findings focus on the
opinion of the parents and the youth exposure about the effect of unhealthy food advertisement on the
children health. However, this makes a resemblance with the proposed project. In the current findings, it
has been observed that the parents support that the sports club should prohibit the unhealthy sponsorship
of alcohol and food organization to keep the children healthy in the sports club (12). Therefore,
alternative funding policy is described in the current findings, which resists the sponsor to advertise their
product on the sports club. This will enable the children to be healthy. Hence, it has been justified that the
findings fulfill the project questions by giving a brief overview of the attitudes and perspectives of the
youth exposure to the unhealthy sports sponsorship in the junior club.

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