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Introduction
Research has shown that food marketing strongly impacts children’s eating behaviour. Marketing influences food purchase requests, purchases, and preferences.
And the evidence of a relationship between food marketing exposure and obesity meets epidemiological criteria for causality. The evidence suggests that the impact of food marketing is a function of both exposure to the marketing message and its persuasive power.
What does the current evidence tell us about the exact effect of marketing on food choices? And beyond that, what strategies are likely to yield the best results in terms of mitigating the harms of food marketing on eating behaviour, particularly in children and adolescents?
To help answer these questions, subject area expert Prof. Emma Boyland is on the podcast to discuss what is currently known.
Related resources
- Selected publications from Prof. Boyland
- Twitter:
- Related episodes:
- #428: Food Environments
- #404: Prof. Marion Hetherington – Psychology and Development of Food Preference & Eating Behaviour
- #363: Public Health Policy vs. Personal Responsibility: Evidence vs. Ideology
- #380: Prof. Barry Popkin – The Nutrition Transition & Using Policy Actions to Create Healthier Diets
- #339: Prof. Corinna Hawkes – Food Policy, Food Systems & Public Health
- The ability for advertising to influence people’s food intake
- “People should have free choice to choose”: Is this a valid reason to oppose more regulation?
- Protocols to monitor food marketing to children from the World Health Organization
- Impact of energy-dense TV and online food advertising on children’s dietary intake
- Implicit and explicit health messages are increasingly prevalent in television food advertising viewed by children, and are frequently used to promote unhealthy foods.
- Impact of social media, influencer marketing, etc.
- The effect of policies to restrict the marketing of foods and beverages to children
- Why industry ‘self-regulation’ fails
- What is the path forward? Effective strategies? Ineffective strategies (wheel-spinning)?
- Is there cause for optimism?
Guest Information
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Dr. Boyland’s key research interest focuses on the way foods and beverages are marketed and how this impacts eating behavious, particularly in children. Specifically, her work explores the effects of food promotion on children’s food preferences, choices, and ingestive behaviour.
Prof. Boyland aims to quantify the extent and nature of food advertising via television, new media and other sources (e.g., outdoor advertising) and elucidate the effects of branding activity (e.g., use of promotional characters) on children’s responses to advertising.
She has recently updated WHO global evidence reviews on the impact of food marketing on eating behaviour and health and the effectiveness of food marketing policies to inform international WHO guidelines. She sits on the WHO Global Steering Committee for digital food marketing, is an expert advisor to both WHO Europe and UNICEF.
Danny Lennon has a master’s degree (MSc.) in Nutritional Sciences from University College Cork, and he is the founder of Sigma Nutrition.
Danny is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Sports Nutrition Association, the global regulatory body responsible for the standardisation of best practice in the sports nutrition profession.
Introduction to this Episode
What does the current evidence tell us about the exact effect of marketing on food choices? And beyond that, what strategies are likely to yield the best results in terms of mitigating the harms of food marketing on eating behavior, particularly in children and adolescents?
Prof. Emma Boyland was on the podcast to discuss what is currently known. Dr. Emma Boyland is a Senior Lecturer in appetite and obesity at the Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool.
Dr. Boylandʼs key research interest focuses on the way foods and beverages are marketed and how this impacts eating behaviors, particularly in children. Specifically, her work explores the effects of food promotion on childrenʼs food preferences, choices, and ingestive behavior.
Boyland aims to quantify the extent and nature of food advertising via television, new media and other sources (e.g., outdoor advertising) and elucidate the effects of branding activity (e.g., use of promotional characters) on childrenʼs responses to advertising.
Connection to Previous Episodes
- #428: Food Environments
- The term “food environment” is used to describe the physical, economic, political and socio-cultural contexts in which choices are made about acquiring, preparing and consuming food. The Sigma team discussed it in this episode.
- #404: Prof. Marion Hetherington – Psychology and Development of Food Preference & Eating Behaviour
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- Of relevance here, in episode 404 the concept of the development of food preferences in infancy was discussed.
- #363: Public Health Policy vs. Personal Responsibility: Evidence vs. Ideology
- In this episode we discussed some aspects of putting policies in place, as well as the difference between mandatory regulation and industry self-regulation.
- #380: Prof. Barry Popkin – The Nutrition Transition & Using Policy Actions to Create Healthier Diets
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- Among other things, this episode touched on the increasing control of the food supply by large corporations and the implications for policy.
- #339: Prof. Corinna Hawkes – Food Policy, Food Systems & Public Health
- In this episode we discussed the forces that dictate the appearance of poor quality food in the food supply and the process of making policy change happen.
