(EA01-10-25) Impact of Commercial Food and Beverage Marketing on Children's Dietary Intake: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis With an Equity Focus

Scientific conference where the work was recently presented: Evidence to Innovation Research Day 2025 at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute (British Columbia, Canada)

Date on which the work was previously presented at the scientific conference listed: February 25, 2025

Objectives: The proposed study aimed to assess and quantify the effect of food and beverage marketing exposure on children's dietary intake and to examine variations based on age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, and marketing medium.

Methods: A systematic review of peer-reviewed primary studies was conducted by searching 19 databases, supplemented by hand-searching the reference list of retrieved reviews and included studies. The search terms encompassed three key concepts: food-related marketing, dietary intake, and population. Eligible studies assessed the impact of advertising on dietary intake of children and adolescents, aged 0-19 years. Two independent reviewers screened titles and abstracts and reviewed full texts. Any disagreements regarding study eligibility were resolved by consensus, with a third reviewer consulted if necessary. Data will be extracted into a standardized evidence table and, where appropriate, included in a meta-analysis to synthesize quantitative findings. Risk of Bias 2 tool will be used to assess bias in randomized controlled trials, and the Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies - of Exposures will be used to evaluate the quality of non-randomized studies. Covidence and Zotero are used for data management.

Results: This systematic review and meta-analysis will be the first comprehensive assessment to quantify the effect of food marketing exposure on children's dietary intake, encompassing studies published between 1970 and 2024. It will also assess the potential heterogeneity of effects by age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and marketing medium.

Conclusions: The findings will inform the development of population-level interventions and policies targeting food marketing to children. Additionally, the updated and quantified effects of such interventions can serve as valuable inputs for modeling the cost-effectiveness of potential policies, particularly in relation to improving diet-related health outcomes, mitigating health inequities, and reducing healthcare costs.

Funding Sources: This research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (#428028).