Ares Gastón, Natero Virginia, Gugliucci Vanessa, Machín Leandro, Alcaire Florencia, de León Carolina, Otterbring Tobias
Sensometrics and Consumer Science, Instituto Polo Tecnológico de Pando, Facultad de Química, Universidad de la República, Pando, Uruguay; Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Departamento de Alimentos, Escuela de Nutrición, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
J Nutr Educ Behav. 2023 Nov;55(11):815-822. doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2023.09.001. Epub 2023 Sep 30.
To evaluate the prevalence of health-related cues as part of the digital marketing of ultraprocessed foods on Instagram among food companies in Uruguay.
Cross-sectional exploratory study. All content posted by 118 Instagram accounts of companies promoting ultraprocessed foods in Uruguay over 6 months (from August 2020 to February 2021) was retrieved. The content of 1,893 Instagram posts was coded considering visual and textual cues conveying health-related associations. The number and percentage of posts, including cues within each category and theme, were calculated.
More than half of all posts contained at least 1 visual or textual cue conveying health-related associations. Three main themes emerged: i) product composition, ii) healthy lifestyle, and iii) health and health benefits. The prevalence of health-related cues differed dramatically across product categories, ranging from 100% to 1.5%.
Health-washing constitutes an integral part of the digital marketing of ultraprocessed foods on Instagram in Uruguay. The inclusion of health-related cues can potentially undermine public health efforts targeted at reducing consumption of these foods. These findings suggest that strict and comprehensive regulations on the digital marketing of such products are needed in policies promoting healthy eating habits globally.
评估乌拉圭食品公司在Instagram上对超加工食品进行数字营销时，与健康相关的提示信息的流行程度。
横断面探索性研究。检索了乌拉圭118个推广超加工食品的公司Instagram账户在6个月内（从2020年8月至2021年2月）发布的所有内容。对1893条Instagram帖子的内容进行编码，考虑传达与健康相关关联的视觉和文字提示信息。计算了包含每个类别和主题内提示信息的帖子数量及百分比。
超过半数的帖子至少包含1条传达与健康相关关联的视觉或文字提示信息。出现了三个主要主题：i）产品成分，ii）健康的生活方式，以及iii）健康与健康益处。与健康相关的提示信息在不同产品类别中的流行程度差异巨大，从100%到1.5%不等。
在乌拉圭，健康粉饰是超加工食品在Instagram上进行数字营销的一个组成部分。包含与健康相关的提示信息可能会破坏旨在减少这些食品消费的公共卫生努力。这些发现表明，在全球推广健康饮食习惯的政策中，需要对这类产品的数字营销制定严格且全面的规定。
