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By Matthew Rees

Food and Health Fact #146: Unhealthy advertising that targets the poor

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Why do people living in low-income areas consume large amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages? Perhaps because they’re targeted with advertising on the days food stamp benefits are distributed.

The volume of advertising was documented in a 2018 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The authors looked at neighborhoods in three New York cities (Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse) where more than 28 percent of the population received benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and then compared advertising for sugar-sweetened beverages on days when SNAP benefits were being issued and days when the benefits weren’t being issued.

The authors found that the odds of a retailer having sugar-sweetened beverage displays were 4.35 times higher on SNAP issuance days than non-issuance days. They also found that “there were no differences in marketing for low-calorie or unsweetened beverages.”

These beverages account for the largest share of added sugars in the American diet. Frequently consuming them, reports the CDC, “is associated with weight gain/obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney diseases, non-alcoholic liver disease, tooth decay and cavities, and gout, a type of arthritis.”