Big Food, Big Tech, and the Global Childhood Obesity Pandemic AUTHORS: Jeff Chester, MSW Kathryn C. Montgomery, PhD MAY 2021 Katharina Kopp, PhD Big Food, Big Tech, and the Global Childhood Obesity Pandemic | 2 Acknowledgments This report is part of a unique partnership of four organizations—Berkeley Media Studies Group, Color of Change, UnidosUS, and Center for Digital Democracy—working together to promote policies to ensure health equity for youth, communities of color, and other at-risk populations. The partnership is funded through a generous grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has also supported CDD’s ongoing research to investigate how contemporary digital marketing and Big Data practices impact young people’s health. We are very grateful to the Foundation’s commitment to these efforts. We also want to thank the following individuals and organizations who helped us with the writing and publication of the report: Jamie Bussel, Lori Dorfman, Gary O. Larson, and Burness Communications. Big Food, Big Tech, and the Global Childhood Obesity Pandemic INTRODUCTION | 3 INTRODUCTION devastating. For decades, there has been a steady and disturbing rise in The coronavirus pandemic triggered a dramatic obesity among children and youth. For example, obesity rates among increase in online use. With tens of millions of families teens ages 12 to 19 have quadrupled remaining in their homes, people turned to the internet since the 1980s. According to the most recent public health data, 19.3 to order food, stay up with the fast-breaking news, percent of all youth between the ages and engage with family and friends. Children and of 2 and 19 are obese. For Hispanic, teens whose schools have closed relied on YouTube Black, and Native American youth, the rates are significantly higher. for educational videos, attended virtual classes on Children growing up in low-income Zoom and Google Classroom, and flocked to TikTok, households have disproportionately greater levels of obesity.7 This is not Snapchat, and Instagram for entertainment and social only a U.S. problem, but increasingly interaction.1 Industry analysts also reported a sharp rise a global problem as well. Worldwide, 2 over 340 million children and in video gaming. adolescents (aged 5 to 19 years) were overweight or obese in 2016, according to the World Health Roblox, a popular 3D user-generated made digital media ground zero Organization.8 These children are at gaming environment for children, for their youth promotion efforts, much greater risk for serious illness, reported a jump of 35 percent employing a growing spectrum including Type 2 diabetes, high in active players since February of new strategies and high-tech blood pressure, heart disease, and 2020, “reaching 164 million by tools to reach into every aspect of depression.9 Overweight and obesity July, with around three quarters young peoples’ lives. Brands are are directly linked to changes in the of American children ages 9 to 12 partnering with “influencers” on diets of children and youth, which on the platform who collectively YouTube, Instagram, and other social are increasingly dominated by foods 3 spent 3 billion hours on the site.” media platforms, weaving their that are high in saturated fats, salt “There are no movies to go to, no logos into the storylines of popular and/or free sugars, so-called “HFSS” sports to watch, and no playdates videogames, and targeting children foods, as well as soda and other to be had,” observed one trade with powerful, immersive video ads sugary drinks. It is widely known 6 publication. “Watching and playing that pop up on their mobile devices. that the overwhelming majority video games provides them a safe These trends have contributed to of food and beverage marketing 4 entertainment alternative.” another critical pandemic. Though targeted to children and teens it is unfolding at a slower pace, its But this constant immersion promotes these unhealthy products. progression is relentless, and its in digital culture has exposed Research has repeatedly documented impact on young people’s health is children and teens to a steady that marketing directly influences flow of marketing for fast foods, soft drinks, and other unhealthy products, much of it beneath the Constant immersion in digital culture has exposed visibility of parents and teachers.5 children and teens to a steady flow of marketing for Food and beverage companies have fast foods, soft drinks, and other unhealthy products. Big Food, Big Tech, and the Global Childhood Obesity Pandemic INTRODUCTION | 4 between obesity and COVID, particularly among children and youth.14 “The evidence is clear,” explained a scientific study published in November 2020, “childhood obesity and COVID-19 are international pandemics. The clashing of the two diseases and the subsequent changes in the bioecological environment have placed children and adolescents at increased risk to develop obesity and exacerbate obesity disease severity.”15 Youth of color have been disproportionately affected by serious illness, hospitalizations, and death from COVID.16 “The Coronavirus is killing Hispanic, young peoples’ food and beverage but also its potential economic Black and American Indian children preferences, purchase requests, and trajectory,” with mortality rates at much higher numbers than their consumption. All of these trends rising by “more than 40% compared White peers,” according to a CDC have created what public health to Gen-Xers at the same age.”11 In report. “Of those killed by covid-19, researchers call a global “obesogenic many ways, these youth are the the illness caused by the coronavirus, environment.”10 “canary in the coal mine” for the more than 75 percent have been future of the nation’s health. Rather Hispanic, Black and American Indian In the U.S., we can already see how than reaching adulthood as the children even though they represent young people who have come of age most vital and healthy members of 41 percent of the U.S. population.” in the midst of this obesity crisis are society, they are burdened by a host One of the key factors identified by showing signs of its negative impact of chronic diseases, increasingly the agency is the “underlying health on their health. In 2019, Blue Cross compromised immune systems, and disparities among minority children Blue Shield issued a report on the shorter expected lifespans than and young adults. About 75 percent health of the millennial generation, earlier generations. Researchers of those who died had at least one those born between 1981 and 1996, at the Harvard School of Public underlying condition, and the most “the largest, most educated, and most Health are already projecting that by frequent were asthma and obesity.”17 connected generation the world 2030, unless current trends change has ever seen.” As the researchers dramatically, “nearly one in two According to the Rudd Center for explained, “Millennials are seeing adults will be obese, and nearly Food Policy and Obesity, food and their health decline faster than the one in four will be severely obese,” beverage companies aggressively previous generation as they age,” warning that “obesity will be the target African Americans, Latinos, with greater levels of hypertension, 12 new normal in this country.” Native Americans and Asian-Pacific high cholesterol, and other chronic Islanders with marketing for foods physical illnesses, along with a Obesity has already been identified and drinks (such as sugary drinks rise in behavioral conditions like as a key underlying condition that and foods low in nutrition and depression and hyperactivity. “How makes individuals more vulnerable high in sugars, salt, and fats) that their health plays out in the years to contracting COVID-19, even contribute to these diseases and ahead will determine not only among young people.13 Numerous harm health.18 Almost no marketing the overall health of the country, studies have revealed strong links Big Food, Big Tech, and the Global Childhood Obesity Pandemic INTRODUCTION | 5 is for foods and beverages that people. These efforts have created a of the federal Children’s Online families should eat more of, like powerful, pervasive, and immersive Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).20 fruits, vegetables or whole grains. digital obesogenic environment that is Over the years, we have closely Youth of color get what researchers harming children’s health, furthering followed the incredible expansion call a “double dose” of unhealthy health inequities, and contributing to of the technology industry and food and sugary beverage marketing, increasingly higher levels of disease its increasingly sophisticated because they are exposed both to in the population. advertising, data collection, and mainstream advertising campaigns marketing apparatus. We have and to targeted efforts specifically We have been tracking the growth documented the increasingly aimed at them through digital media, of the digital marketplace for more complex and highly technical which they use more often and than 25 years, beginning with the nature of digital food marketing, more intensely than do their white earliest commercial enterprises underscoring how different it is from counterparts.19 on the World Wide Web in the 90s, more traditional forms of advertising, when food and beverage companies and identifying the threats it poses The COVID-19 pandemic were among the first marketers to children’s health and wellbeing.21 underscores the urgent need to to establish kid-friendly branded