How providers and practitioners can reduce children’s exposure to unhealthy food marketing

By

Written by: Galiya Chenault, Graduate Student Worker, Healthy Eating Research

Unhealthy food marketing contributes to global health issues such as childhood obesity, poor nutrition, and diet-related diseases, making it crucial for professionals who work with children to understand and address its impact. Food and beverage companies often target children with high-sugar, high-fat products across digital platforms, such as social media, gaming sites, and video streaming. This environment influences children’s preferences and eating behaviors, normalizing unhealthy food choices and reinforcing health disparities, particularly among Black and Latino youth.

Recognizing the importance of this issue, Healthy Eating Research convened an expert panel to review existing evidence and develop recommendations to mitigate harms from digital food marketing to children ages 2-17. These recommendations were published in October 2024.

The recommendations aim to protect children from harmful digital marketing by addressing industry-led, school-based, social environment, other physical food environment, and government policies. In addition, practitioners, educators, school administrators, and other community leaders who interact with children can play a role in reducing exposure to harmful advertising and promoting healthy food choices, which can create lasting, positive changes for children’s health.

What can providers and educators do to protect kids from digital food marketing?

The influence of digital food marketing on children’s health is widespread. At the same time, educators, healthcare providers, and community leaders have the ability to mitigate its impact by advocating for policies, encouraging healthy habits, and promoting digital boundaries among children. The following are targeted actions that schools, healthcare providers, and community groups or leaders can take to protect children from the influence of unhealthy food marketing:

School Administrators

Schools play a critical role in shaping children’s digital environments and can implement effective policies to reduce exposure to harmful food marketing. Administrators can take proactive steps by establishing school-wide guidelines that prioritize student privacy and limit digital advertising on school-issued devices and networks. Specifically, schools should:

  • Install ad-blocking technology and filters to prevent exposure to unhealthy food marketing;
  • Adopt strong privacy policies that protect and control student data usage, preventing companies from collecting, sharing, and selling online student data except for essential educational purposes;
  • Include provisions in school wellness policies that clearly state that digital instructional materials should be free from unhealthy food marketing; and
  • Partner with privacy-compliant edtech by purchasing digital tools and services only from companies that adhere to privacy by design and offer ad-blocking and filtering features.

Additionally, schools can join initiatives such as the Phone-Free Schools Movement and task their School Wellness Committees with promoting healthier, screen-free interactions among students. Through collaboration with local school boards and district leaders, administrators can also advocate for district-wide digital privacy standards that protect children’s health and limit exposure to unhealthy food marketing. For more resources, schools can refer to organizations like Fairplay to find advocacy tools and best practices for creating safe digital spaces for students.

Healthcare Providers

Healthcare providers can be trusted advisors, guiding parents on the health dangers of excessive screen time and exposure to digital food marketing. Providers can educate parents on how exposure to online ads for sugary snacks, fast food, and sugary drinks contributes to unhealthy dietary choices, weight gain, and long-term health risks, such as obesity and diabetes. Educating parents about these risks empowers them to take action to protect children’s health.

Healthcare providers can also encourage parents to set digital boundaries at home, such as creating device-free zones during meals and limiting non-essential screen time. Additional materials should be available in the clinic that show parents how to adjust privacy settings, disable data tracking, and choose ad-free content to minimize children’s exposure to targeted food marketing.

By equipping parents with these insights and tools, healthcare providers can foster healthier environments that protect children from the influence of digital food marketing and encourage long-term healthy habits.

Community Organizations (e.g., sports teams, clubs, churches)

Community organizations have a unique opportunity to create healthy environments. One solution that community organizations can adopt is to limit digital communication with children. Coaches, club leaders, and youth group organizers can encourage communication via email rather than social media to reduce children’s exposure to online advertising. Due to the pervasiveness of digital food marketing, any engagement with social media may increase the exposure to and harm caused by digital food marketing. Additionally, these groups can establish guidelines for device use, such as no phones during practice, meetings, or events.

By fostering a culture that values face-to-face interaction and reducing digital exposure, community organizations can contribute to creating a healthier social environment for children.

Where can I learn more?

Visit HER’s website for the complete recommendations and a fact sheet for parents and caregivers.

Learn more about the recommendations in our upcoming webinar: Register here.

Additional resources can be found here: