Adolescence is a critical period for future health outcomes. Food habits and cognitive development are underway, and it is a period of heightened sensitivity to external influences and emotional shifts. We experimentally test the individual and combined influence of food advertisements and emotional primes (i.e., positive, negative, neutral) on adolescent food choices. Participants completed a food choice task selecting five snacks out of twenty healthy and unhealthy options in an online experiment. Prior to the food choice, we randomized whether adolescents were exposed to unhealthy food or non-food online advertisements. To induce experimental variation in adolescents’ emotions, they were assigned to watch two, two-minute film clips validated to elicit the targeted emotion. The online food advertisement did not significantly impact food choices, except that Black and Hispanic groups selected a higher share of calories from unhealthy foods. Participants in a negative emotional state selected more unhealthy sweet snacks. Finally, we find only weak evidence that a positive emotional state amplified the impact of food advertisements on the nutritional quality of food selection. Together, results suggest that while a negative emotional state drives food choices, this pattern occurs independently from food advertisement exposure.

中文翻译：

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在线食品广告以及情绪在青少年食物选择中的作用

青春期是未来健康结果的关键时期。饮食习惯和认知发展正在进行中，这是对外部影响和情绪变化高度敏感的时期。我们通过实验测试食品广告和情绪启动因素（即积极、消极、中性）对青少年食物选择的个体和综合影响。参与者完成了一项食物选择任务，在在线实验中从 20 种健康和不健康的零食中选择了 5 种。在选择食物之前，我们对青少年是否接触过不健康食品或非食品在线广告进行了随机分组。为了诱导青少年情绪的实验变化，他们被分配观看两段两分钟的电影片段，经过验证可以引发目标情绪。在线食品广告并没有显着影响食物选择，只是黑人和西班牙裔群体从不健康食品中选择了更高比例的卡路里。处于消极情绪状态的参与者会选择更多不健康的甜食。最后，我们只发现微弱的证据表明积极的情绪状态放大了食品广告对食品选择的营养质量的影响。总之，结果表明，虽然负面情绪状态会驱动食物选择，但这种模式的发生与食品广告曝光无关。