Assessing the Public Health Impacts of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative

Published: October 2021

ID #: CAS057

Publisher: Healthy Eating Research and RTI International

Authors: Muth MK, Karns SA, Hayes M

See more related research

Share

The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) is a voluntary industry initiative in which companies commit to featuring only foods meeting specific nutrition criteria in advertising directed primarily to children under age 12. New criteria that were announced in 2018 and went into effect in 2020 strengthened the nutrition standards and changed the criteria for total sugars to added sugars for consistency with the new Nutrition Facts label. This study assessed the relative importance of CFBAI-listed products in children’s diets compared to substitute products not on the CFBAI list, which is needed to understand the potential for the criteria to have a public health impact. This brief summarizes the results of an analysis of the effects of the criteria and recent changes; the complete results are described in more detail in the full report.

Full Report

Access the report by RTI International for the full study background, methodology, and findings.

Read the Brief

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight, Food Marketing

Keywords: Digital marketing, Food advertising, Food formulation

Age Groups: Elementary-age children (grades K to 5), Preschool-age children (ages 3 to 5)

State: National

Resource Type: Report

Related Research

January 2020

Understanding the Public Health Significance of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative

The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) is a voluntary industry initiative in which companies commit to feature only foods meeting specific nutrition criteria in advertising directed primarily to children under age 12. Uniform nutrition criteria were originally established in 2011, and new criteria will go into effect in January 2020. The public health More

March 2024

Centering equity in FDA regulation: Front-of-package food label effects in Latino and limited English proficiency populations

This project aims to determine the front-of-package label design that is most effective at helping Latino consumers identify and choose healthier products. The project also aims to explore whether the benefits of front-of-package design differ by English proficiency. Participants will include 4,000 US adults of parental age (18-55 years old) who identify as Latino. Participants More

February 2024

Effects of front-of-package non-sugar sweetener disclosures on parents’ perceptions and selection of sweetened food and beverage products for their children

The project aims to use an online randomized experiment to 1) evaluate the impact of front-of-package (FOP) non-sugar sweetener (NSS) disclosures on a) parents’ selection of unsweetened products and b) parents’ selection of products with NSS and use focus group discussions to 2) examine parents’ understanding and perceptions of NSS and FOP NSS disclosures, 3) More