Reality TV “bombards” young people with alcohol marketing thousands of times across some of the most popular shows, a study has warned. Shows including Love Island, Made in Chelsea and Married at First Sight Australia expose viewers to high levels of alcohol content and are a potential driver of alcohol use in young people, the research, published in the Journal of Public Health, has found.
Researchers looked at a sample of 264 episodes from 20 reality TV programmes broadcast from 2019 to 2020 in English-speaking countries to try to assess the potential exposure children and young people have to alcohol, tobacco, and products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) on popular shows. They measured the number of one-minute intervals containing tobacco, alcohol, and HFSS imagery, including actual use, implied use, tobacco, alcohol or HFSS-related paraphernalia, and product-specific branding.
Alcohol appeared across 39% of intervals and 98% of the episodes studied and foods high in sugar and fat appeared in 13% of intervals viewed across 88% of episodes studied. Tobacco content appeared in 2% of intervals across 2% of episodes viewed.
