Background: This work is aimed to describe the recent scientific literature developed in the food/beverage sector and social networks aimed at children and adolescents, as well as current regulations. Methods: A rapid review of the studies on advertising and social media aimed at children, published from 2010 tp 2020 is carried out, following the established inclusion criteria. In addition, the regulations in the countries in which the studies were carried out were also reviewed. Results: Of the 573 articles, 7 met these criteria. The great attraction of unhealthy foods for children is observed, who remembered and recognized a greater number of unhealthy food brands and, by extension, the ability to influence of communication in social networks. Each country has its own self-regulation, two (Ireland and USA) have legislation on children’s food advertising, and Australia has legislation that applies only to open television. However, none of the analyzed countries have specific regulations on food, children and media advertising. Conclusions: Given the fact that there is evidence about the great attraction that social networks suppose for the child, that they are a stimulus for the consumption of food and that many of these foods are harmful to their health; we should work in two directions: 1) Promote public policies based on promoting healthy habits among minors; and 2) Monitor and implement regulations in commercial communication social media.

In functional food advertising, messages are not always easily understandable for the target audience. Current European legislation, enforced through Regulation 1924/2006, specifies that such messages should be clear and precise so as not to mislead the consumer. The objective of this study was to observe consumers’ understanding of messages in functional food advertisements. The methodology used was a self-administered survey filled out by 191 students enrolled in a Degree in Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alicante (Spain). The results suggest that a large number of students do not know what functional food is and obtain information about these products mainly from labelling/packaging. The major means of communication through which they learn about health benefits via advertising is the internet, followed by television. Most respondents indicated that they understood related advertisements and found it helpful to be given additional information on health benefits. Worthy of note, the greater their level of understanding of the messages, the higher their level of distrust of advertising messages, which they considered to be deceptive or misleading.

This study aims at understanding how scientific evidence to substantiate nutrition and health claims in food commercial communication is regulated in Europe and the USA. A literature review was performed on the scientific evidence required by the European Food Safety Authority and the US Food and Drug Administration to substantiate food nutrition and health claims. Studies published in Scopus, Medline, Scirus, and Google Scholar from 2007 to 2012 were reviewed as well as documents released by both agencies. A total of 38 documents met our inclusion criteria out of 743 documents initially identified during our search. These agencies provide general guidelines on how to conduct food and health studies, intended to demonstrate a cause‐and‐effect relationship between a given food and a benefit to health. Despite this, they need to broaden the depth and scope of the guidelines provided to companies seeking to substantiate their claims and to provide further and more precise information concerning the evaluation of studies and application processes. No review has hitherto specifically focused on the subject of scientific evidence required by EU and US food agencies to substantiate health claims. This research thus leads to significant recommendations on how to improve current food industry guides.

Caffeine is a food supplement widely consumed by athletes, but it has not been established. So far, the veracity of their labeling in terms of the dosage and cause/effect relationship aimed at the consumer. The aim is to analyze the health claims and the dosage presented on the labeling of caffeine supplements and to evaluate if they follow the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and international criteria. A descriptive cross-sectional study of a sample of caffeine supplements was carried out. The search was done through the Amazon and Google Shopping web portals. In order to assess the adequacy of the health claims, the guidelines of reference established by European Food Safety Authority were compared to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, International Olympic Committee, and Australian Institute of Sport guidelines; in addition, recent systematic reviews were addressed. A review of labels of 42 caffeine supplements showed that, in less than 3% of the products were the health claims supported by the recommendations and by the labeled quantity of caffeine. The claims that fully complied the recommendations were, “improves or increases endurance performance”, “improves strength performance”, or “improves short-term performance”. In most cases, the recommended dosage was 200 mg/day for these products, which is the minimum for the caffeine effects to be declared. The rest of the health claims were not adequate or need to be modified. Most of the health claims identified indicated an unproven cause and effect, which constitutes consumer fraud, and so must be modified or eliminated.

La inexperiencia de los niños ante los mensajes publicitarios hace que desdediversos ámbitos se fomente la autorregulación, con el fin de protegerlos desus eventuales efectos nocivos. En España, la publicidad del sector dealimentación dirigida al público infantil se encuentra autorregulada por elCódigo PAOS. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo identificar, mediante análisis decontenido, similitudes y diferencias entre PAOS y otros códigos internacionales.Los resultados muestran que la preocupación por el tema se manifiesta no solo enel desarrollo de códigos específicos para el público infantil, sino también paraotros sectores, y que las discrepancias entre los códigos están determinadaspor las exigencias requeridas a la publicidad en Internet.

El objetivo principal de este estudio es el análisis de los componentes que proporcionan buscabilidad y visibilidad a los diarios nativos digitales en Internet, bajo el concepto unificador de la experiencia de búsqueda. La metodología empleada es el análisis comparativo del así llamado Search Experience Optimization (SXO) de un grupo de medios digitales. En concreto, se han analizado eldiario.es, publico.es, elconfidencial.com, elespanol.com, huffingtonpost.es, infolibre.es, libertaddigital.com y vozpopuli.com. Para llevar a cabo este análisis utilizamos el protocolo de estudio denominado PAXBCM. Gracias a este análisis hemos podido mapear e identificar diferentes grados de cumplimiento de la SXO por parte de los cibermedios analizados, siendo libertaddigital.com el que presenta mejores resultados globales. Todos los medios analizados presentan oportunidades de mejora en diversos aspectos, especialmente en la velocidad de carga, el uso de contenido multimedia, la accesibilidad y la buscabilidad.