Invited Symposium III: Food and Beverage Marketing to Youth

(3-023)  Invited Symposium III: Food and Beverage Marketing to Youth

Chair: Augusto Diana, PhD, DESPR/PRB, NIDA

Organizers: Augusto Diana, PhD, NIDA, Keryn Pasch, MPH, PhD, University of Texas at Austin, Pilgrim S. Spikes, PhD, MPH, MSW,LCDR, USPHS, Centers for Disease Control 

Presenters: Andrew Cheyne,C.Phil, Berkeley Media Studies Group, Kathryn C. Montgomery, PhD, American University, Keryn E. Pasch, MPH, PhD, Sana Chehimi, MPH,Prevention Institute

Food marketing to youth is prevalent and happens through numerous channels. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of food and beverage marketing to youth, discuss food marketing in the digital realm, provide evidence of the prevalence and content of outdoor food and beverage advertising, and highlight a campaign to designed to engage parents and communities in a policy advocacy approach to improve food marketing practices.

Food and Beverage Marketing to Children and Adolescents: An Environment at Odds with Good Health

Andrew Cheyne, CPhil, Pamela Mejia, MPH, MS, and Lori Dorfman, DrPH, MPH, Berkeley Media Studies Group

Children in the United States grow up in environments saturated by food and beverage marketing, the bulk of it for foods low in nutrients and high in calories, sugars, salt, and fat. Food and beverage companies use sophisticated integrated marketing communications to keep their brands in front of young people by creating special products and packaging; adjusting price points; making products available in the places frequented by youths; and conducting numerous promotions so that young people will remember, prefer and predictably select the brands. African American and Latino children and adolescents are exposed to higher levels of marketing for unhealthy food and beverage products. Although the industry has improved its self-regulatory program through the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, there remain loopholes and significant gaps that allow food, beverage, and chain restaurant companies to market energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods and beverages to young people.

Contemporary Food Marketing in the Digital Era: New Agendas for Research and Intervention

Kathryn C. Montgomery, PhD,American University

Today’s young people are growing up at the center of an exploding digital media culture. The major food and beverage brands are employing a panoply of digital marketing practices to target children and teens through social networks, videogames, and mobile devices.  The ability to engage with youth interactively takes the basic marketing paradigm to a new level, challenging the prevailing theories and methods that have guided media research in the past.  The traditional research emphasis on the content of television commercials and their effects on behavior and attitudes of young children is rooted in an earlier set of relationships in the mass media that are less applicable to contemporary practices. New models, research methods, and agendas are needed in order to address the dramatic changes in the advertising and marketing landscape and to develop public health interventions and regulatory safeguards for reversing the youth obesity epidemic.

Outdoor Food and Beverage Advertising: A Saturated Environment

Keryn E Pasch, MPH, PhD and Natalie S. Poulos, MS, RD,University of Texas at Austin

The marketing and advertising of energy dense, low nutrition foods and beverages have been found to influence children’s eating behavior and preferences. While work has focused on the influence of food and beverage advertising on television, little research has examined the influence of exposure to advertising around schools. Because youth are exposed to advertising around schools on a daily basis, it is crucial to determine how this form of advertising may influence preferences and choices for unhealthy (i.e., energy-dense, low nutrition) foods and beverages. Results will be presented from a study which documented the outdoor food and beverage environment around 34 middle schools, 13 high schools, and 9 hospitals in the central Texas area. Implications for policy as well as links to tobacco and alcohol advertising will be discussed.

“We’re Not Buying It: Stop Junk Food Marketing to Kids”

Sana Chehimi, MPH and Juliet Sims, MPH, RD,Prevention Institute

In communities across the country, food and beverage industry marketing practices shape the food environments and food behaviors of children and families. Local and state advocates have the opportunity to shift policies that drive intensive marketing and access to unhealthy foods. Drawing on recent food marketing research and industry tactics to block policy change efforts, Prevention Institute created We’re Not Buying It, a video revealing the deceptive lengths that food industries will go to in order to promote unhealthy foods to kids. By highlighting industry practices--from soda companies using school marketing campaigns disguised as charities, to food package labels meant to mislead parents, to online games –the video questions industry claims that they're trying to be part of the solution for kids' health. Using the video as a case study, we will delineate strategies to engage parents and communities in a policy advocacy approach to improve food marketing practices.