How Does Social Media Influence Children's Choice of Foods?

Broadcast marketing and product placement of unhealthy foods high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar have been solidly linked to the global childhood obesity epidemic.

Now, to determine the impact of social media marketing of food to children, investigators in the U.K. conducted a randomized trial of 178 youths (age, 9 to 11 years) randomized to one of three groups: Participants were exposed to mock Instagram images of unhealthy foods, healthy foods, or nonfood items (e.g., sneakers) held by a 23-year-old male and a 26-year-old female YouTube video blogger (vlogger), who were among the 10 most popular vloggers in the U.K. (4 and 12 million Instagram subscribers, respectively). Most of the children (71%) had a healthy weight, 18% were overweig…