(P24-087-23) Young Children’s Exposure to Food and Beverage Marketing on Mobile Devices

Objectives: Food and beverage marketing negatively influences children’s diet quality and weight status. While much is known about children’s exposure to food and beverage advertisements on traditional broadcast television, little is known about young children’s exposure to marketing on mobile devices, which is the most common type of screen media. Our study measures young children’s exposure to food/beverage marketing on mobile devices.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2022-2023. Massachusetts parents of children aged 2-11 years old who watched games or viewed videos on mobile devices were eligible to participate. Building on previously established methods, parents completed a short survey of what apps/shows their child watched that day for 5 days, and sent researchers screenshots of the child’s mobile device use from the battery usage screen. A sub-sample of parents tracked the number of total advertisements and appearances of branded products within the shows or games themselves, both overall and for foods/beverages specifically, shown on the various apps/shows children watched.

Results: Preliminary: 
We analyzed 232 days of mobile device data from 47 children (mean age 4.5±SD 1.96). On average, children watched 43.9 (±SD 62.8) mins/day of screentime, including both videogames and shows, on mobile devices. The most frequent apps used were YouTube (12%) and YouTube Kids (8%). Preliminary estimates for parental sub-sample data suggest that, on average, 2.5 advertisements or appearances of branded products were shown to a child per hour spent overall on mobile devices, with 18% of these being for foods or beverages. However, on YouTube, children saw 3.0 advertisements/branded product appearances per hour, with 24% of those being for foods or beverages. No food/beverage advertisements were seen on young children’s games.

Conclusions: Young children are exposed to food and beverage advertising when using mobile devices. Exposure may be greater based on the platforms on which videos are viewed. More research is needed to better understand how food/beverage marketing targets young children on mobile devices.

Funding Sources: This study was founded by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.