World's worst? ParknShop in Hong Kong Central tops list of unhealthy food and alcohol promotions

Hong Kong has emerged the top offender in a new international study that found unhealthy foods are the most promoted products in online supermarket circulars around the world.

In an analysis of weekly circulars from major supermarket chains in 12 countries, those from ParknShop were found to promote the highest proportion of unhealthy foods (61.7 per cent) and also had the lowest ratio of healthy to unhealthy foods (0.5 per cent).

The study, by Australian obesity prevention researchers at Deakin University's WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention in Melbourne, was conducted over eight weeks, from July to September. It was published in September in leading international journal, Preventive Medicine.

Countries were selected based on the online availability of weekly circulars and the absence of significant language or interpretation barriers.

The worst offender was a ParknShop in Central - the study found it promoted the greatest proportion of unhealthy food and alcohol (69 per cent), followed by Asda in the UK (61 per cent) and Kroger in the US (57 per cent). Coles and Woolworths in Australia (54 per cent) and Giant Hypermarket in Malaysia (51 per cent) rounded out the supermarkets for which unhealthy food and alcohol accounted for more than half of their promotions.

Circulars from Loblaws (Canada), New World (New Zealand), FairPrice (Singapore) and Shoprite (South Africa) also contained a high proportion of unhealthy food (40 per cent to 50 per cent). The exceptions were the Philippines (no unhealthy foods) and India (11 per cent unhealthy food).