Authors
Christine Driessen, Asim Bhatti, Adrian J Cameron, Florentine Martino, Navoda Liyana Pathirana, Kathryn Backholer
Published in
Australian and New Zealand journal of public health. Pages 100331. Aug 30, 2026. Epub Aug 30, 2026.
Abstract
To quantify children's visual attention to placement strategies for healthy and unhealthy foods and beverages in a real-world Australian supermarket and examine their explicit memory.
An exploratory observational eye-tracking study, conducted in a supermarket in Victoria, Australia, with 15 children aged 7-12 years and their caregivers. Children wore mobile eye-tracking glasses during a routine grocery shop to capture their gaze data, including first fixation and dwell time, followed by a recall survey.
Children spent on average 17.2% of their shopping time visually engaged with foods displayed in prominent locations, with 99.2% of this attention directed towards unhealthy products. Attention was highest for displays at store entrances (37.5%) and checkouts (36.1%), followed by end of aisles (16.8%) and standalone islands in other areas (8.9%). All children recalled foods they had visually attended to during the shop.
Unhealthy foods displayed in prominent locations in the supermarket effectively capture children's attention and may influence memory.
To our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically demonstrate children's actual exposure (via first fixation) and engagement (via dwell time) with food and beverage products displayed in prominent locations in a real-world supermarket. Restricting the prominent placement of unhealthy foods could meaningfully reduce children's exposure to unhealthy food marketing.
PMID:
42547342
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 04 Aug 2026.
Read full publication at:
Please sign in
to see all details.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 1
- Comments 0