The Impact of Social Media Influencers on Children’s Dietary Behaviors

Abstract

Over the past years vlogs rapidly have become an attractive platform for food industries, sponsoring social media influencers to promote their products. As with more traditional media, social media influencers predominantly promote unhealthy drinks and foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt-consumption of which may increase the risk of overweight, obesity, and non-communicable diseases. The aim of the current Brief Research Report is to examine the impact of vlogs on children's unhealthy dietary behaviors. Drawing on longitudinal survey data from 453 8-to 12-year-old children, we analyzed the longitudinal relations between children's frequency of watching vlogs and their consumption of unhealthy beverages and snacks. Structural path modeling analyses of three waves of data with 1-year intervals showed that children's self-reported frequency of watching vlogs influenced consumption of unhealthy beverages 2 years later. The analyses did not yield significant relations for Unhealthy Snacks Consumption. The strength of the observed longitudinal relation between children's Frequency of Watching Vlogs and Consumption of unhealthy beverages was comparable to previous findings regarding more traditional types of food marketing.

Children's Health in the Digital Age

“…Eating while viewing increases children's daily energy intake [34], as demonstrated by studies were children were reported to consume a large proportion of their daily calories and meals during screen time while watching. However, the reasons for this change in the eating habits of the youngest, exposed to longer screen times, are only beginning to be unraveled.…”

“…Obesity is deemed one of the most challenging public health problems faced by developed and developing countries worldwide. Screen media exposure is deemed a well documented cause of obesity in children, and obesity a well documented consequence of screen media exposure [33][34][35][36][37]. Exposure to 'screen media' in this context refers to exposure to content on any screen including that of tablets, computers, smart phones or TV sets.…”

COVID-19 Pandemic, Personality and Geriatric Population: Proposed Pragmatism

“…It often leads to social vices in the form of domestic violence, child sexual abuse, elder abuse, and criminal activity. Social media has a monumental role in the rapid downhill transition as most of the times it showcases false and baseless news uploaded and shared by random users imbibing panic, phobia and anxiety thus attributing to the aforementioned behavioral alterations (Smit, Buijs, van Woudenberg, Bevelander, & Buijzen, 2019). The imposition of a countrywide lockdown leads to the cessation of daily activity.…”

Twitch user perceptions, attitudes and behaviours in relation to food and beverage marketing on Twitch compared with YouTube

“…One of the most prominent new forms of advertising is influencer marketing, whereby popular online personalities collaborate with businesses to endorse and promote products to their users (1) . Influencer marketing is particularly noticeable among food and beverage products, and clear associations exist between influencer marketing of food and beverage products and various viewer behaviours, including brand recognition, desire to 'like' or 'share' posts and longitudinal consumption (2,3) . The impacts of influencer marketing may particularly be harmful to children and adolescents who may be unable to fully comprehend the misleading nature of the material (4) .…”