“There is a significant body of research showing that children are more vulnerable to advertising when it is integrated into content. The fact that children who spend hours a day on YouTube and TikTok feel like they have relationships with influencers makes these junk food pitches even more powerful,” said Josh Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in a recent email exchange. He also sees disclosures such as an #ad hashtag as meaningless to children. “The FTC should instead prohibit influencer marketing aimed at children as an unfair practice,” he said.

Researchers and journalists have called for stronger regulations, but the FTC has failed to issue a report on food marketing to children since its 2012 report. In 2014, the FTC told Politico that it had “no plans to continue using their authority” to obtain child marketing data from the 44 largest food and beverage companies in the United States.

The FTC’s lack of oversight is apparent in a 2020 study published in the journal Pediatrics. The study analyzed YouTube kid influencers ages three to 14 years found that, of 179 videos featuring food and/or drinks 291 times, 90 percent were highly processed foods and fast food from brands such as McDonald’s, while only 2 percent were healthier branded items such as Yoplait yogurt. The study concluded that the FTC “should strengthen regulations regarding product placement on YouTube videos featuring young children.”

Part of the regulatory work is playing catch-up to the Internet and social media, where television rules prohibiting actions like “host selling”—or hosts selling products in commercials on their own programs—do not apply. Members of Congress have proposed expanding the proposed Kids Internet Design and Safety Act to go prohibiting just alcohol, tobacco, or nicotine and include foods containing artificial flavors and colors, trans fats, excess sugars per item, high fructose corn syrup, and other processed foods. The struggle is passing such bills in the face of food industry lobbying, which has powerful coffers. The junk food lobbyists are well-funded, determined, and creative. In 2017, soda and fast food lobbyists even used state preemption laws to prevent local governments from enacting soda taxes.

“When companies use billions of dollars to target minors, that’s outrageous to me,” Harris said. “It’s not giving them more choices; it’s affecting their preferences and their behaviors for the rest of their lives. This is a very impressionable age for creating these habits.”

With teens absorbing more screen time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Harris is concerned that they are also seeing more social media advertisements. Even prior to COVID, her research found that for ages 13 to 17, 70 percent were engaged with one food brand, with 30 percent engaged with five or more brands. The categories the teens engaged with were comprised by half of fast food, sugary foods, snack brands, and soda.

Harris said that because the general public doesn’t view junk food and fast through the same lens as controlled substances, food companies have encountered less regulation. The companies have also been clever about using everyday teens and influencers to cater to their peers—often in hopes of tapping into the emotional attachments formed to peer networks.

“[Teenagers’] peer networks are really the most important thing in their life,” Harris said. “So, it really is taking advantage of the developmental vulnerability of this age group.”

There is No ‘Kale TikTok’

Vegan influencers and brands do find traction on the platform, which could promote healthy eating habits—though many vegan influencers, like Zacchary Bird and Emily Daniels, promote vegan junk food or high-sugar desserts.

In the absence of federal regulation, the fight against these ads needs to start with parents’ awareness, Harris said. The pandemic may have made parents, whose teens are home doing distance learning, see how much highly processed food are in their diets.

“Even before COVID, parents had no idea what their kids were seeing on social media, how much advertising there was, and how powerful it was,” Harris said. “Increasing parents’ awareness about this kind of thing, especially for the younger teens who are just starting to get into this, could be powerful.”

Harris suggested that since most teens aren’t motivated by health and nutrition, pointing out the sugar content in The Charli probably wouldn’t make them stop drinking it. Instead, she said, parents could appeal to teens’ sense of being deceived. This tactic would encourage teens to be critical of a social media platform that encourages eating and drinking sugary, processed foods while also expecting them to maintain certain body images and fitness goals that potentially contribute to disordered eating.

“If you could point out the hypocrisy, [ask young people,] ‘Do you really think she drinks these drinks?’” Harris said. “That could be effective.”