Sugar sweetened beverages on emerging outdoor advertising in New York City

As a replacement for traditional phone booths, LinkNYC kiosks provide the ability to make free calls, connect to WiFi, and to charge electronic devices. These structures, which are supported by advertising revenue, are found in growing numbers on the streets of New York City (NYC). The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of sugar-sweetened beverage advertisements on LinkNYC kiosks.

Cross-sectional, observational.

A total of 100 kiosks from a sample of 507 kiosks were randomly selected and observed in Manhattan, NYC.

A total of 2025 advertisements, including duplicates, were observed that included 347 (17.1%) viewed at 64 kiosks for non-alcoholic beverages. Over half (n = 206, 59.4%) featured beverages with added sugar. For the 206 beverages with sugar, the mean kilocalories and grams of sugar per serving were 149.90 (SD = 64.95, range = 90-300) and 35.04 (SD = 19.54, range = 17-81), respectively. Differences in the frequency of these 206 advertisements were examined by the median annual income quartile of the census tract where the kiosk was located, and no significant differences were observed, χ² (3, N = 206) = 3.09, P = 0.38.

As the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene invests in efforts to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, promoting these very products through new media controlled by the City does not seem well aligned with the goal of improving dietary intake of citizens.