Like and share: associations between social media engagement and dietary choices in children

This 2018 study, set in New South Wales, Australia, explored the relationship between children’s behaviors online and on social media with their unhealthy food and drink intakes. A total of 417 children aged 10-16 years completed an online survey on Internet and social media use (including engagement with food and drink brand content) and frequency of unhealthy food and beverage consumption. Baldwin et al. (2018) identified significant correlations between purchasing food online, seeing favourite food brands advertised on the internet, and seeing a food brand on YouTube with higher frequency of unhealthy food and drink consumption, after making adjustments for age, sex and socio-economic status. Since greater online engagement with food brands and content resulted in more frequent unhealthy eating and drinking, regulations and policies must be applied on social media content to limit the influence of unhealthy food marketing on children. [NPID: screen time, eating behaviors, social media, Australia, brands, Instagram, advertising, YouTube, social media regulations, social media influence, bad influence]

Year: 2018

Reference: Baldwin, H. J., Freeman, B., & Kelly, B. (2018). Like and share: associations between social media engagement and dietary choices in children. Public health nutrition, 21(17), 3210–3215. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980018001866