Digital food environments: factsheet (2021)

Digital technologies are becoming integrated to varying degrees into everyday life across the 53 countries of the WHO European Region. This factsheet investigates digital food environments. Digital food environments are the online settings through which flows of services and information that influence people’s food and nutrition choices and behaviour are directed. They encompass a range of elements, including social media, digital health promotion interventions, digital food marketing and online food retail. The past decades have seen growth in the time people spend on online platforms. Food marketing has taken on new forms in the digital space and many online platforms have introduced marketing of food and drink products in their content. It is difficult to regulate the marketing of unhealthy products, as advertising has become more targeted and personal and, consequently, more difficult to monitor.