Digital food and beverage marketing is embedded in nearly every platform children use (websites, mobile apps, social media, video sharing, gaming, streaming TV), promoting unhealthy foods and beverages, which is harming children’s health. Healthy Eating Research convened an expert panel to develop evidence-based recommendations for actions to mitigate harms from digital food marketing to children ages 2 to 17. The multidisciplinary expert panel was composed of researchers, advocates, and practitioners in the areas of digital and food marketing, racial and ethnic disparities, children’s privacy, community engagement, children’s media usage, communications, psychology, pediatrics, and digital technology. The panel examined the research on digital marketing and reviewed current policy options to develop recommendations for policies to protect children from harmful and unfair digital food marketing practices and future research needed to address key gaps in the literature. All recommendations focus on the key actors affecting children’s digital environments, including industry-led policies, school-based policies, other physical food environment policies, social environment policies, and government policies.

Technical Report

This report presents evidence-based recommendations for policies and systems-level solutions to reduce children’s exposure to and/or the power of unhealthy digital food marketing. The technical report contains the full review of evidence and methodology used to develop the recommendations.

Executive Summary

This summary presents the expert panel’s recommendations and highlights the evidence reviewed.

Fact Sheet for Parents

This fact sheet describes what parents and caregivers need to know about digital food marketing, including what foods are marketing to children, how digital marketing reaches kids throughout the day, and what parents can do to reduce kids’ exposure to digital marketing.