JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Food companies have increased digital and social media ad expenditures during the COVID-19 pandemic, capitalizing on the coinciding increase in social media usage during the pandemic. The extent of pandemic-related social media advertising and marketing tactics have been previously reported. No studies, however, have evaluated how food and beverage companies used COVID-washing on social media posts in the U.S. or analyzed the nutritional content of advertised food and beverage products. This study was designed to address these gaps by evaluating how food and beverage companies capitalize on the COVID-19 pandemic to promote unhealthy foods and sugary beverages.

Objective:

We aimed to (1) document the types and frequencies of COVID-19-related themes in U.S. food and beverage companies’ Twitter posts during the first wave of the pandemic in the U.S., and (2) assess the nutritional quality of food and beverage products featured in these tweets.

Methods:

Research assistants visited the Twitter accounts of the most-marketed food and beverage brands, and screen-captured all tweets posted between March 1 – May 31, 2020. Researchers documented the date of the tweet, number of likes, views, comments, and “retweets”, and type of food and beverage products. We coded tweets for the following ten COVID-19 themes: (1) social distancing/staying home/working remotely; (2) contactless delivery/pick-up; (3) hand-washing/sanitizing; (4) masks; (5) safety/protection; (6) staying connected with others; (7) staying active; (8) frontline/essential workers; (9) monetary relief/donations/unemployment; (10) pandemic/unprecedented/difficult times. Researchers calculated the Nutrient Profile Index scores for featured foods and sorted beverages into categories based on sugar content.

Results:

Our final sample included 878 COVID-19-themed tweets from 51 food and beverage brands. Social distancing themes appeared most frequently (42.0%), followed by pandemic/unprecedented/difficult times (28.2%), and contactless delivery (27.1%). The majority of tweets (77.6%) promoted foods and beverages. Among those tweets featuring foods and beverages, 89.6% promoted unhealthy products, whereas 17.2% promoted healthy products.

Conclusions:

Our findings point to a concerning marketing tactic in which major food and beverage companies promote unhealthy foods and sugary beverages during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that nutrition-related diseases such as obesity and diabetes are risk factors for COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, food and beverage companies should reduce promotion of unhealthy products to help decrease the prevalence of health conditions that place people at higher risk for severe illness and death due to COVID-19. Clinical Trial: N/A