Healthiness of Foods on Promotional Flyers of Selected Accra-Based Supermarkets

Abstract

Introduction: Supermarket shopping is greatly influenced by the level of income, ultra-processed foods, smaller bottles of soft drinks, convenient ready-to-eat products and foods processed to suit local taste. The increase in purchase is due to promotion of these food items in, for example, food promotional flyers, and at heavy discounts. These efforts are gradually shifting consumers‘ dietary pattern from complex carbohydrates to energy rich, refined and highly processed foods (Junk foods) known to be the leading causes of Non-Communicable Diseases. Objective: To assess the healthiness of foods on promotional flyers of selected Accra-based supermarkets. Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional study was carried out using content analysis of food promotional flyers in the major Accra based supermarkets. All the four major shopping malls in Accra were selected for this study using purposive sampling. Supermarket flyers (32) were collected through mystery shopping, the content of flyers were coded and entered into excel, exported into SPSS statistical software package for analysis into tables and graphs. Results: The result of the study shows that all the foods promoted in the supermarket food flyers were unhealthy (high sodium / saturated fats - 71.9%, high sodium exclusively - 18.8% and added sugar foods - 9.4%). These unhealthy foods were greatly discounted at an average percentage discount of 27.5%. Major claims that were associated with the promotions were price benefit claims (54.0%) and puffery size claims (34.0%) (Appendix 3). Conclusion: The results of the study clearly show that Accra-based supermarkets heavily promote unhealthy food items in promotional flyers at great discounts, which could cause substantial consumption of saturated fats, high sodium and added sugar foods and beverages that could significantly escalate the overweight, obesity and hypertension burden in Accra.