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The social media diet: experts weigh in on how marketing affects unhealthy food habits

The social media diet: experts weigh in on how marketing affects unhealthy food habits
Fast food is high in sugar and salt. (Photo: achhealthenews.com / Wikipedia)
Lillian Roberts
By Lillian Roberts
6 Aug 2024
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Digital marketing is prolific and sometimes hard to recognise, especially with the advent of paid social media influencers. South Africa has a high burden of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity that have been linked to ultra-processed foods and fast food.

What are the regulations and reach of food and beverage digital marketing in South Africa, the tactics of online marketing, demographics targeted, and our options for changing the status quo? These are some of the questions asked by Managing Editor of Maverick Citizen Zukiswa Pikoli, joined in a webinar conversation by Lisa Deyce, Dietitian and Research Assistant in the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, and Lisanne du Plessis, Dietitian, Nutritionist and Associate Professor in the Division of Human Nutrition, Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch University. 

“There are very many different causes of malnutrition, and many of them are linked to poverty and social inequalities. But we also know that this crisis of malnutrition has been fuelled by the marketing of unhealthy and ultra-processed foods and beverages, and this marketing has picked up at a tremendous pace, and also ‘reach’ through the internet and mobile platforms. We also know now that digital marketing is the most prevalent form of marketing worldwide,” says Lisanne du Plessis. 

She says that this is a targeted online style of marketing, referred to as “behavioural marketing”. Companies have found ways to use online spaces to market their products, and it is very difficult to enforce regulations in these spaces, she says. 

With Lisa Deyce’s master’s degree, she looked directly at influencer marketing of food and beverages in social media, and another project that is expanding beyond what she focused on in her masters. 

“I’m also working on a TV marketing project, so you see some overlap in the marketing techniques that are used on the different platforms. But the more traditional marketing is more obvious and more in your face, whereas digital marketing is more manipulative and sort of underhanded,” Deyce says.  

Building brand loyalty from the beginning  


The first week of August is World Breastfeeding Week, supported by the World Health Organization, Unicef (the United Nations Children’s Fund) and many ministries of health and civil society partners. 

“This year’s theme is closing the gap, and that specifically refers to supporting everybody in this cause, getting as many mothers as possible supported to breastfeed. So it also points to closing the gap on inequalities,” says Du Plessis. 

She says not all social media is negative. One of her master’s students conducted a research project assessing a Facebook group where there was peer-to-peer support, and it increased mothers’ self-reported confidence to breastfeed. 

food child advertising The crisis of malnutrition has been fuelled by the marketing of unhealthy foods, say the authors. (Photo: thesun.co.uk / Wikipedia)



“The negative take on it is, of course, that the commercial milk formula companies, the ones who manufacture formula milk, find spaces and places on digital media platforms where they market the product directly to mothers, and this is not allowed.” 

Regulation 2(14) of R991 provides that “no incentives, enticements or invitations of any nature, which might encourage consumers to make contact with the manufacturer or distributor of a designated product which might result in the sale or promotion of a designated product for infants or young children shall be used on the label or in the marketing of a designated product(s) for infants and young children”.

Marketing directly to mothers


Du Plessis says commercial milk formula companies have found ways of marketing products directly to mothers, by creating a page on a digital platform, and inviting mothers to join on another platform such as WhatsApp. Even if they don’t directly market the milk formula, they market other products like commercial complementary foods that have almost exactly the same branding. And so, when mothers recognise the branding, they’ll link the formula, complementary foods and other products made for toddlers and children, and begin to trust the company for information. 

“It is difficult to monitor these spaces, and it is difficult to often see what is happening, because you can’t be on social media and all the platforms all of the time, and some of the posts will be featured, and then they will be taken down,” Du Plessis says.

World Breastfeeding Week calls for everyone, beyond the government and healthcare providers to the entirety of society, to support mothers in the home, the workplace, retail areas and public spaces to continue their breastfeeding journey, says Du Plessis. 

Impressionable children and the influence of marketing 


Children are exposed to ultra-processed and fast food from a young age, and it’s all around them; from school, billboards, TV, social media and the games they play, says Deyce. 

“That builds that trust with them from a young age, and they are more likely to want to consume those products, and as we know all these products have negative health impacts. And so we are starting to see that children are starting to develop chronic diseases of lifestyle that were usually found in older people. So like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, those types of things, it’s starting to affect them at a younger age, because they are exposed to these products from such a young age,” says Deyce.  

“Because the parents already have a trusting relationship with them because of those are products that they used on their babies, when they see those brands on products that their children are asking for when they are a little bit older, they make the association with the brand, and so they are more willing to then buy those products for their kids,” Deyce says. 

She adds that overconsumption of unhealthy products will lead to health issues in the future, and if these health issues start as a child, such as obesity, it is more likely that it will carry on into the future. 

Sneaky marketing techniques


One of the sneaky marketing techniques Deyce has come across is the use of influencer marketing, where the influencer will be talking about their day and making a smoothie or some kind of food while they talk, and there will be product placement prominently in the video, but the influencer won’t make an overt reference to the product, necessarily. 

“So something that I noticed in my research was that influencers will ask the audience to purchase and consume the product and to film themselves doing that, and they’ll ask that the followers post the content and tag them in it, so that they can repost it on to their profiles. And if you look at it from the perspective of a young, impressionable person, they will see this as a great opportunity to interact with someone they look up to, and so they’ll be more likely to then purchase the product. They’ll consume the product. They’ll essentially create content to market the product themselves and to use children and young people in that way,” Deyce says.   

Difficult to monitor


While regulation 991 does cover the realm of the internet, Du Plessis says it’s far more difficult to monitor these spaces. She says that while our regulations are good, it is about getting the capacity to monitor whether companies are respecting the regulations. 

food child advertising Fast foods are high in sugar and salt. (Photo: achhealthenews.com/Wikipedia)



“The government can’t do everything. It can’t be everywhere. So we need, as healthcare professionals, to be updated and also upskilled in recognising transgressions and then making an effort to report those. And we are also too few to do all of that. So we all work with different people and for, and specifically in, public health,” Du Plessis says. 

She adds that partners and stakeholders and the public need to understand the regulations, because the legal language isn’t always accessible. People should be able to recognise a transgression and be able to report it, know which form to use and how to fill it out.

Who is targeted?


Deyce says the lower- and middle-income countries are usually targeted with marketing because their regulations are not as stringent as higher-income countries. During her research she found that regulations are often centred around children under 12 years old. 

“They are still children after that. So adolescents are being targeted even more. I think that if we only focus on regulating child marketing for under 12-year-olds, the focus is going to shift to adolescence, because they are the next best audience to target, because they are also susceptible to and impressionable to these marketing tactics.” 

Du Plessis adds that World Health Organization regulations around marketing to children do extend to children under the age of 18. The guideline recommends countries implement comprehensive mandatory policies to protect children of all ages from the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages that are high in saturated fatty acids, trans-fatty acids, free sugars and/or salt.

World Health Organization recommendations are not mandatory for governments to apply. 

The discussion moves on to talking about sponsoring children’s sports in schools, whether it be the uniforms for sports or the creation of sports fields. This is what is known as “sportswashing”, where an unhealthy brand attaches its name to a healthy activity like exercise, in order to divert from the harm overconsumption of the product does to people’s health. 

Deyce proposes that if these companies want to achieve their corporate social responsibility goals or do good in the public, they do not have to attach their brand names to the uniforms they provide or fields they sponsor — they could do it anonymously. 

“We should know what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do, and when we see something, we have the responsibility to report that,” says Du Plessis. DM

 

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