Food and Beverage Marketing: Objective Measures to Inform Policy

Obesity rates among youth, while leveling off in recent years, have more than tripled since 1980. While this increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity is influenced by a multitude of factors, food and beverage marketing and its resulting influence on the dietary preferences and choices of youth is thought to be a key factor in the development of this chronic health condition. While research has documented the relationship between food and beverage marketing and obesity-related outcomes, policy efforts to reduce marketing to youth have met with limited success. This presentation will discuss the methodological implications for assessing food and beverage marketing within a multi-level context to inform policy and practice. Methodological strategies and results from several studies will be highlighted that use objective measures to provide evidence of adolescents' exposure to food and beverage marketing. The first study uses eye-tracking, a computer-based technology that provides an unobtrusive, real time descriptive analysis of an individual's point of gaze, sequence of gaze, and length of attention for food and beverage advertisements. Two additional studies documenting and describing the outdoor and in-school environments using observations of all food and beverage marketing within one half mile of schools and all food and beverage marketing in school will be discussed. Given that little attention has focused on outdoor and in-school environments, objective measurements can provide evidence of the extent of exposure. These studies will highlight how objective measures may help to inform policy.