Is food and drink advertising across various settings associated with dietary behaviours and intake among Australian adolescents? Findings from a national cross-sectional survey

Issue Addressed

The pervasive promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and drinks undermines efforts by adolescents and their parent/carers to maintain a nutritious diet during a crucial developmental period. This study examined the association between awareness of food and drink advertisements and adolescents' dietary behaviours and intake.

Methods

A sample of Australian secondary students aged 12–17 years (N = 8763) self-reported their awareness of food and drink advertisements across seven settings, whether they had tried a new product or asked a parent/carer to purchase a product they had seen advertised, and their consumption of various unhealthy food and drink types. Analyses used multilevel mixed-effects generalised linear models adjusted for school-level clustering, socio-demographic factors and television viewing.

Results

Students with higher advertising awareness were more likely to have tried a new product they had seen advertised (adjusted prevalence ratio [APR] = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.51–1.73, p < .001) and asked their parent/carer to buy an advertised product (APR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.51–1.73, p < .001) at least once in the past month. As advertising awareness increased, so too did students' likelihood of reporting these dietary behaviours. A high unhealthy food intake was more commonly reported among students with higher advertising awareness (APR = 1.45, 95% CI = 1.32–1.58, p < .001), as was a high unhealthy drink intake (APR = 1.29, 95% CI = 1.18–1.42, p < .001).

Conclusions

Australian adolescents are vulnerable to the persuasive effects of food and drink marketing.

So What?

Greater restrictions on the way the food and drink industry can market their products to adolescents are needed to better support them in developing and maintaining positive dietary behaviours.