Healthy characters? An investigation of marketing practices in children's food advertising.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the nutritional quality of foods advertised with familiar children's characters and health-related messages. DESIGN: Children's programming aired on the most popular broadcast and cable channels during 2011 was sampled to form a composite weekday and weekend day. All food advertisements (ads) included in this programming were content analyzed. PARTICIPANTS: Five hundred seventy-seven food ads. VARIABLES MEASURED: Familiar characters promoting products were either trade or licensed characters. A product's nutritional quality was determined using the United States Department of Health and Human Services' categorizations, based on the frequency foods should be consumed. Health cues were present when a food was claimed to be healthy, physical activity was depicted, or the product was associated with fruit. ANALYSIS: Frequencies and chi square analyses were conducted; P < .05. RESULTS: Nearly three quarters (73%) of food ads targeting children use a familiar character. The majority of these ads (72%) promote foods of low nutritional quality, yet 53% employ a health-related message. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Familiar characters proliferate in food advertising to children, yet marketers do not adhere to recommendations that characters promote strictly healthy foods. Future research is needed to investigate effects and inform policy decisions in this realm.

Invasion and biofilm formation of Burkholderia dolosa is comparable with Burkholderia cenocepacia and Burkholderia multivorans.

BACKGROUND: Colonisation with Burkholderia cepacia complex pathogens has been associated with accelerated decline in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. The two most common species among the CF community are Burkholderia cenocepacia and Burkholderia multivorans. However, Burkholderia dolosa has recently been causing concern due to its transmissibility and virulence in CF patients. METHODS: We have compared the ability of five B. dolosa strains to invade lung epithelial cells in vitro with other members of the Bcc. The bacterial epithelial cell interaction was visualised by transmission electron microscopy. We have also examined the ability of these strains to form biofilms in vitro. RESULTS: We have found that members of this species can invade pulmonary epithelial cells in vitro as readily as those from B. cenocepacia and B. multivorans. Confirmation of intracellular invasion was obtained by transmission electron microscopy. B. dolosa strains were readily observed in membrane bound vesicles inside the lung epithelial cells. In addition, strains from this species were capable of forming strong biofilms at a level comparable to the more clinically relevant species. CONCLUSIONS: B. dolosa shows comparable virulence characteristics in vitro to the two most clinically relevant species indicating precautions should be taken when this species is identified in the CF population.

Differences in invasion and translocation of Burkholderia cepacia complex species in polarised lung epithelial cells in vitro.

In order to investigate the mechanisms by which Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) strains cross the epithelial barrier of the lung and cause septicaemia in a subgroup of Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients, the invasiveness of four Bcc species have been examined in three lung epithelial cells: A549, 16HBE14o- and Calu-3. The latter two cell lines form polarised monolayers when grown on filters. Invasion of both cell lines by B. multivorans strains was reduced when the cells were grown as tight monolayers compared unpolarised cells, suggesting basolateral receptors are required for the process. In contrast, four B. cenocepacia strains showed comparable invasion of both cell lines irrespective of culture model. All four species of Bcc reduced the TER of Calu-3 monolayers. However, while B. cepacia, B. multivorans and B. stabilis strains readily translocated across the epithelial monolayer, B. cenocepacia translocation was slower. Both B. multivorans and B. cenocepacia altered expression of ZO-1 in Calu-3 cells, but not E-cadherin. Overall, the findings that Bcc strains from four species, which differ greatly in their virulence, have the potential to disrupt tight junctions and to translocate across the epithelium, demonstrates this effect is not exclusive to the most virulent species.