Study Estimates U.S. Youth See Thousands of Food-Marketing Messages Online Each Year

U.S. children and teenagers may encounter thousands of food-marketing messages on digital platforms each year, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago and published in JAMA Pediatrics.

The researchers recorded the screens of 1,011 young people ages 8 to 17 during a 30-minute session of ordinary leisure use on smartphones and tablets. They then combined those observations with participants' reported daily screen use to estimate annual exposure.

The resulting estimate averaged 3,883 food-marketing exposures per year. It was much higher among teenagers ages 13 to 17, at 10,107, than among children ages 8 to 12, at 1,427. Those annual figures are estimates, not a year-long count of each child's screen activity.

Almost 83% of the observed food marketing came through social media, with TikTok and YouTube together accounting for more than half of all exposures. Gaming accounted for about 14%, with other platforms making up the rest.

Fast food, sweets and beverages were the most frequently marketed categories. Among non-restaurant food products, 91.6% failed to meet the Pan American Health Organization's nutrient-profile standards.

The study measured exposure to marketing, not what participants ate or whether a particular message caused a health problem. Its limits also matter: messaging apps were excluded, which may have shifted participants toward platforms with more marketing, and knowing they were recorded could have changed their behavior. Restricting the recordings to phones and tablets may also have missed other exposure.

Lead researcher Lisa Powell said the findings could help inform policies intended to protect children from unhealthy food marketing. The researchers also found that a substantial share of exposure came from unpaid content. Online food marketing therefore extends beyond conventional advertisements.