Representations of adolescent eating in commercial image banks

Promoting healthy eating among adolescents is a public health priority. Campaigns to address this issue are increasingly popular and often include visual media such as posters, print and online materials. The most common image source for such materials is commercial image banks, where users pay a one-time fee for unlimited use of royalty-free images. The purpose of this study was to search the most widely-used commercial image banks to examine images representing adolescent eating. Systematic review of the top image banks was conducted using keyword searches. Search terms denoting adolescents OR physical activity OR eating, yielded 240,000 "hits." Of those, 4556 images (2%) portrayed at least one adolescent engaging in actual or “implied” eating or physical activity. This presentation focuses on “eating” images (n=1613). Of these, 74.2% contain at least one female, 19.5% contain at least one non-Anglo adolescent, and <1% contain overweight youth. Slightly over half (52.3%) of the foods portrayed were coded as healthful (eg, yogurt, fruits) with 45.2% coded less healthful (eg, salty snacks, fast food). Of beverages, 23.2% were milk or water and 17.7% were soda. Findings suggest racial and gender differences in the types of foods and beverages represented, with mixed-gender images and images including non-Anglo youth more likely to feature unhealthy food and beverages. Overall results suggest a dearth of images representing adolescents of varied backgrounds and sizes consuming healthy foods and beverages. This study highlights unmet needs for images and offers possible insight about health disparities and public perceptions of healthy eating.