Alarming exposure to food, alcohol and tobacco marketing from a young age
Advertising has an enormous influence on children’s social norms, preferences, consumption behaviours and brand loyalty. Frequent exposure to junk food, alcohol, gambling, vape and tobacco marketing from a young age establishes patterns that persist into adulthood, significantly impacting health and quality of life outcomes.
The problem is global, with many forms of online marketing pervasive in young people’s lives, along with the persistence of more traditional media exposures such as television, billboards, packaging and product placement. Such marketing contributes to overweight, obesity and poor health in children and adolescents, among other physical and mental health disorders, while undermining their right to the highest attainable standard of health.
Global studies give a picture of the problem and the need for policy solutions
GLOBE public health researchers Navoda Liyana Pathirana, Kathryn Backholer and Florentine Martino in collaboration with software engineers Asim Bhatti, Leo Saif and Tikaraj Ghising at IISRI have been studying the rates and impacts of harmful marketing on children and adolescents across the world, forming global partnerships to both better detect exposure and advocate for policies to reduce it.
“We’ve been working closely with software engineers at IISRI to develop an automated AI system that automatically detects young people’s exposure to the marketing of unhealthy foods, alcohol, gambling, vaping and tobacco,” said Pathirana. “We’ve then taken the results we’re generating to a range of national and international partners to advocate for better advertising policies.”
One of the tools the researchers have developed is SCANNER, an AI-powered system that detects and categorises harmful advertisements people see online. “We started with a proof of concept, and asked whether it can be done given we have never used AI to see digital marketing detections. We developed the system for nearly two and a half years. It’s still developing – like all AI, it’s an ongoing process, but we have been able to use it in key studies.
“For example, we’ve extended our SCANNER system to the UK and Ireland, using it for analysis of food-related marketing because UK has a legislation very soon to be implemented to protect children from junk food marketing. We are also expanding into Canada, Denmark, and other countries to do similar studies.”
SCANNER is more than 95 per cent accurate in detecting the marketing of harmful commodities it is trained to detect (foods, alcohol, gambling and vapes). It is at least 12 times faster than manual analysis, and protects the privacy of youths by removing the need for humans to see the recordings participants shared.
Using SCANNER to understand young people’s exposure to unhealthy marketing in Australia
The GLOBE team tested SCANNER for the first time in Australia by collecting digital screen recordings from 16 youth between the ages of 8 to 25 years. Participants shared recordings of the screens from their digital device, which represented 30 per cent of their usual screen time on one weekday and one weekend day. At the time of field-testing, SCANNER was trained to automatically identify 125 leading food brands, 148 leading alcohol brands and 99 leading gambling brands in Australia.
The research was unveiled in the landmark #DigitalYouth report, which found:
- Children (8-13 years) witness approximately 13 junk food ads every day
- Teenagers (14-17 years) see at least one instance of gambling marketing, six alcohol ads and 24 junk food ads every day while online.
- Young people (18-25 years) see on average two instances of gambling ads, seven alcohol ads and 23 junk food ads every day while online.
Ads included interactive buttons that link children and young people to platforms where gambling, alcohol and unhealthy food products are sold. For example, buttons prompting them to ‘install’ a gambling app, to ‘learn more’ about alcoholic products, and to ‘shop now’ and ‘order now’ for confectionary and unhealthy takeaway foods.
“The findings in that report were highly concerning,” said Pathirana. “People as young as 16 years were seeing alcohol and gambling ads. And these are not things you see while scrolling the internet. These are targeted sponsored ads that appear on the kids’ very own timelines, even though industry regulation should prevent that.
“Also alarming is that while we talk a lot about social media regulation, the little kids aged eight to 13 see a lot of unhealthy advertising while they are playing virtual games. There is a game called Roblox, for example, where a popular setting to work, play and eat is McDonalds. This is sneaky marketing intended to hook kids on brands and products from a young age.”
The #DigitalYouth study has been expanded to 300 participants, with data being analysed for a more comprehensive report that will quantify Australian children’s and youth’s exposure to harmful online marketing more comprehensively. Pathirana said one of the key features researchers have already seen from the preliminary results is that most children and young people do want regulations so that they don’t see this kind of marketing online.
“They see so many advertisements and want government to step up and regulate these industries,” she said. “There is a lot of political interest in this work, especially with the social media ban on its way in Australia, so we will keep taking our researchers to policymakers to advocate for change.”
Contributing to international food marketing research
Through 2024, the team has also contributed to various reports related to harmful marketing for the World Health Organisation and UNICEF’s South Asia office. This includes a chapter within a WHO report on the Commercial Determinants of Health, a report for the WHO offering guidance for European countries to design legislative measures to protect children from harmful food marketing, and several reports with UNICEF South Asia focussed on adolescents’ food environments.
“We asked adolescents in South Asia, what kind of food they see in their schools and communities, and what advertisements,” explained Pathirana. “Do you see advertisements for unhealthy foods on your school premises? And more than half of them said, ‘yes.’ Many of these schools accept sponsorships from harmful food industries which market their products within and near school premises.”
The survey also revealed that unhealthy, processed foods and sugary drinks are widely available in schools and communities, contributing to poor dietary choices. Young people in South Asia generally believed that governments could do more to address overweight and obesity, including through the use of food marketing controls.
Other ongoing work regarding harmful marketing exposure
The GLOBE team’s research and collaborations around harmful advertisements continues, with a number of national and international projects that engage the SCANNER application, including:
- The CLICKBITE study – understanding the children and youth’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing in Ireland, led by The Open University in collaboration with Universities of Galway, Liverpool, Dublin and Ulster;
- Assessing unhealthy food marketing exposure in the UK, led by the University of Liverpool ;
- The Influencer study – understanding the extent and characteristics of influencer marketing for e-cigarettes (vapes), tobacco, gambling, alcohol, as well as unhealthy foods and beverages by 70 most popular influencers among adolescents in Australia;
- The Sport Sponsorship study – understanding the total time that gambling, alcohol, and unhealthy foods and beverage brands are visible during professional sporting matches aired on free-to-air television; and
- #DigitalMob – working with the Murnong Mob at Deakin University to understand digital marketing exposures among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Partner with us
We are always looking to collaborate with philanthropic partners who share our vision for healthier, fairer digital environments for children and young people. Your support can help us scale innovative methods for monitoring unhealthy digital marketing practices, co-designing solutions with young people and policy makers, and informing stronger policies that protect young people’s health and wellbeing.
Future partnerships could involve co-investment in longitudinal studies and building AI-enabled tools, funding knowledge translation activities that bridge research and policy, or supporting youth-led advocacy and engagement programs. To explore how we can work together, please contact Kathryn Backholer.
