Investigating Children's Exposure to Outdoor Food Marketing in 2 Swedish Cities Using a Smartphone App:...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Nutritional Science
• Environmental Health

Background:

• Childhood obesity and poor diet are significant public health issues.
• Food marketing, especially for ultra-processed foods (UPFs), influences children's eating habits.
• Dynamic food environments are challenging to monitor for marketing exposure.

Purpose of the Study:

• To pilot a novel smartphone app and dashboard tool for identifying children's outdoor food advertising exposure.
• To assess the prevalence of UPF, healthy food (fruit, berry, vegetable, seafood - FBVS), and promotion advertisements.
• To explore variations in advertising exposure by city size and socioeconomic status (SES).

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 46 children in 2 Swedish counties.
• Children used a smartphone app to photograph food ads and record GPS locations.
• Researchers mapped "hotspot areas" identified by the app and analyzed ad content.

Main Results:

• 34 "hotspot areas" were identified from 1308 child-submitted photos.
• Researchers collected 2955 ads; 77.5% promoted UPFs, 20.8% featured FBVS.
• UPF ads were prevalent across city sizes and SES levels; promotions often favored UPFs.

Conclusions:

• A child-centered mobile health tool effectively identified food advertising hotspots.
• The identified hotspots predominantly featured UPF advertisements, with limited healthy food promotion.
• Findings indicate a food marketing environment misaligned with dietary recommendations, necessitating policy interventions.