A new study confirms what many have long suspected—when food companies target Black and Latinx youth with their advertising, they nearly always focus on fast food, candy, sugar-laden drinks and other unhealthy choices.
Titled “Increasing Disparities in Unhealthy Food Advertising Targeted to Hispanic and Black Youth,” the study was released today (January 15) by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. In it, researchers from the University of Connecticut, Drexel Universityand the University of Texas Health Science Center detailed how 86 percent of food ads purchased on Black-targeted TV programming were unhealthy, as were 82 percent of the ads on Spanish-language television in the United States. Candy companies were the segment of the food industry that most disproportionately advertised to these demographics.
The report also explains that advertising for healthy items (such as 100 percent fruit juice, nuts and water) only comprised 1 percent of Black-targeted ads and zero percent of Spanish-language television ones. In “general market” advertising, 3 percent is spent on healthy food options.
[For more on this story by Ayana Byrd, go to https://www.colorlines.com/art...-youth-junk-food-ads]
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