YouTube Influencers: A New Defense against Childhood Obesity?

ABSTRACT Childhood obesity is a serious public health issue. While advertising on children’s television has been established as a contributing factor to poor dietary habits, less is known regarding the influence of food promotions in social media. Thus, this 2-part exploratory study examined the content and effects of food promotions in YouTube. Our data revealed that fruits and vegetables are more likely to be promoted on this newer platform than in television advertising. Study 2 then revealed that exposure to a promotion for healthy food was associated with more positive evaluations of the food. However, neither judgments of appropriateness nor persuasion knowledge activation were significantly associated with evaluations of the healthy food. Thus, our findings did not support the use of the persuasion knowledge model in examining covert advertising of healthy foods to children and instead provides support for the mere exposure effect.