A vast majority of food and beverage products marketed by some of the most popular music stars in the US are unhealthy, a new study has found.
This type of advertising is contributing to the alarming rise in childhood and teen obesity, researchers from New York University (NYU) in the US warned.
Soda and other sugary drinks, fast food and sweets are among the most common food and beverage products endorsed by famous music personalities, researchers said.
They found that none of the music stars identified in the study endorsed fruits, vegetables, or whole grains. Only one endorsed a natural food deemed healthy - pistachios.
"Because of our nation's childhood and teenage obesity public health crises, it is important to raise awareness about how companies are using celebrities popular with these audiences to market their unhealthy products," said Marie Bragg from NYU.
To identify popular music stars, researchers went through Billboard Magazine's "Hot 100" song charts from 2013 and 2014.
They also verified their popularity and marketing appeal with teens by reviewing Teen Choice Award winners, and quantified the number of YouTube video views associated with the celebrities' food and nonalcoholic beverage brand endorsements.
Researchers then catalogued every endorsement between 2000 and 2014 using AdScope, an advertisement database that contains all forms of ads, including television, magazine, and radio.
They also searched for official commercials or endorsements on YouTube and in media sources. Endorsements were defined to include a celebrity's participation in a concert sponsored by a product.
After sorting the endorsements into different marketing categories, they found that 65 of 163 identified pop stars were associated with 57 different food and beverage brands.
Food and nonalcoholic beverages were the second-largest endorsement category, comprising 18 per cent of endorsements and ranking after consumer goods at 26 per cent and ahead of retail at 11 per cent, researchers said.
To assess nutritional value of the endorsed food products, they analysed nutrition information on food labels using the Nutrient Profile Model (NPM), which has been used in other food marketing research studies and provides a score that represents nutrient content.
Twenty-one out of 26 food products - or 81 per cent - were deemed "nutrient poor."
Researchers determined a beverage's healthfulness by looking at calories from added sugar. Of 69 beverages endorsed, 49 or 71 per cent were sugar-sweetened.
Full-calorie soft drinks were the most commonly endorsed in the category. In contrast, water-related endorsements appeared only three times.
Celebrities also should use their influence to promote more healthful marketing and encourage consumption of healthy foods, researchers said.
The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.
