Focus Area: Food Marketing

Better for You Foods: A Guide to Evaluating the Quality of Nutrition Standards

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Retailers and other organizations currently use a variety of nutrition standards and recommendations to guide consumers towards healthier, “Better for You”, options. This variety can be confusing to consumers. Healthy Eating Research convened a scientific advisory committee to review existing “Better-For-You” nutrition standards, and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. The scientific advisory committee developed a More

No Fat, No Sugar, No Salt…No Problem? Prevalence of “Low-Content” Nutrient Claims and Their Associations with the Nutritional Profile of Food and Beverage Purchases in the United States

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Nutrient content claims, which characterize the level of a nutrient in a food (e.g., “low-sugar”), are a commonly used marketing tactic. The association between claims, the nutritional quality of products, and consumer purchases is unknown. This study examined low-content nutrient claims on more than 80 million packaged food and beverage purchases from a transaction-level database More

Investigating How to Align Schools’ Marketing Environments With Federal Standards for Competitive Foods

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The goal of this study was to determine how to improve school marketing environments so that they align with new federal competitive food standards. The research team assessed the food marketing environments in three schools in Portland, Maine, using the food and beverage marketing in schools (FMBS) survey, and provided schools with technical assistance to More

Impact of Explained v. Unexplained Front-of-Package Nutrition Labels on Parent and Child Food Choices: A Randomized Trial

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This study examined the impact of front-of-package (FOP) labels and in-aisle signage identifying and explaining those labels on the healthfulness of foods selected by consumers. 153 parent/child pairs completed the study in a laboratory grocery aisle. Participants were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: (i) Facts up Front labels with in-aisle signs explaining the More

Evaluating Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Advertising prior to Implementation of the San Francisco Warning Label Ordinance

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Starting in July 2016, San Francisco, Calif., will require prominent warning labels on most sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) advertisements (i.e., “WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay”). The purpose of this project is to collect baseline data on the presence and types of SSB print advertising visible in a sample More

The Use of Brand Mascots and Media Characters: Opportunities for Responsible Food Marketing to Children

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This issue brief examines the evidence on how food, beverage, restaurant, and entertainment companies have used brand mascots and cartoon media characters to influence children’s diet and health. Brand mascots and media characters represent a broad range of human or fictional kid-friendly animals or animated objects used by companies to market their products. Many of More

Assessing Digital Food and Beverage Marketing in Middle Schools Nationally to Inform Policy to Restrict Marketers’ Access to Children

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This study aims to assess school digital marketing environments in a national sample of middle schools to identify opportunities and barriers to limit school-based marketing. This team previously developed a survey to assess digital marketing in schools as part of a previous HER-funded grant which will be used in this study. The specific aims of More