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American adolescents consume more sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) than any other age group. Sports and energy drinks consumption among adolescents is higher than other SSBs. For sports drinks, there is uncertainty about their "healthiness" and also beliefs that these drinks may provide health benefits such as hydration, enhanced athletic performance, heightened mental alertness, and rapid recovery after exercise. Confusion about relative healthiness and expectations of health benefits suggest that factors that may encourage youth to avoid drinking sports and energy drinks, such as athletic status, psychological reactance, and SSB media literacy, may necessitate different approaches to promoting avoidance of sports drinks compared with avoidance of energy drinks. Using a nationally representative U.S. probability-based web panel augmented by a volunteer nonprobability-based web panel of 500 adolescent participants aged 14 to 18 years, we used the reasoned action approach to model intention to avoid sports and to avoid energy drinks. The result show there are similarities and differences in the determinants associated with adolescents' avoidance of sports and energy drinks: attitudes and descriptive normative pressure are both related to increased avoidance for both types of drinks and perceived control over the avoidance behavior is positively associated for with intention to avoid for energy drinks. Sport identification, psychological reactance, and SSB media literacy also play a different role in the sports and energy drink models. Based on our results, the content of prevention messages in interventions to limit sports drinks will need to be quite different from those targeted at reducing energy drink consumption.

Purpose: To understand what factors are associated with adolescents' perceived healthfulness of sports drinks (SD) and of energy drinks (ED), with a focus on health risk, athletics, and media-related variables., Design: Cross-sectional survey., Setting: Online., Subjects: U.S. adolescents ages 14-18 years (n = 501) recruited from a combination of non-probability and probability-based panels., Measures: Outcome variables were perceived healthfulness of SDs and of EDs. Independent variables included adolescents' health background (oral health, diabetes risk, self-reported weight); behaviors (SD and ED consumption, athletic identity, sports participation, physical activity), and media items (media literacy, exposure to advertisements on TV, YouTube, social media)., Results: Regression results indicated that adolescents' increased perception that SDs are healthy was significantly associated (P<.05 level) with casual sports participation (b=.56, se=.27), athletic identification (b=.28, se= .11), exposure to SD advertisements on social media (b=.55, s =.25), and higher consumption (b=.28, se= .13). For adolescents' perceptions of EDs, significantly related correlates included athletic identification (b=.26, se=10), having an increased risk of diabetes (b= -.79, s =.26), poorer oral health (b=.33, se=.16), and consumption (b=.76, s =.16); increased media literacy was associated with more accurate perceptions (b=-.35, se=.14)., Conclusions: Adolescents' hold different perceptions about the healthfulness of sports and energy drink, and their beliefs about each drink are related to different types of factors that may have implications for public health interventions. Cross-sectional survey design and adolescent self-reports are limitations.

This study identifies constructs from key persuasion theories that are present in popular sports and energy drink advertising. A theory-driven content analysis was conducted on 315 popular television and social media sports and energy drink advertisements from top selling brands. The advertisements were analyzed for the presence of persuasive cues as per the Elaboration Likelihood Model (e.g, onscreen consumption, presence of celebrities) as well as Reasoned Action behavioral expectancies and normative beliefs Approach related to consumption. Descriptive statistics were calculated. Differences between sports and energy drinks were assessed and reliability statistics for all codes were calculated. Advertisements relied on peripheral cues like sports and celebrities that were not related to the drinks themselves. Theory-relevant beliefs about improved athletic performance and consumption of the drinks onscreen were common. Sports drinks were more likely to focus on mainstream sports; energy drinks featured extreme sports, and energy drink advertisements promoted the drinks for use beyond sports (e.g., work settings). The cues and beliefs identified in these ads help to clarify the role of advertising in beliefs about sports drinks being healthy and energy drinks being helpful to achieve goals. Future research is needed that links exposure to coded advertisement features to adolescents' beliefs about sports and energy drinks., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Understanding why sports and energy drinks remain increasingly popular among adolescents despite declines in other sugar sweetened beverages is critical. This study points to memory for advertising exposure and adolescent athletic identity as two aspects that together help to explain consumption. An online survey of U.S. adolescents aged 14–18 (n = 503) was combined with Nielsen data for television and social media advertising expenditures by sports and energy drink brands in participants' designated market areas (DMAs). Advertisement recall mediates the relationship between social media DMA expenditures and sports and energy drink consumption. Recall for television advertisements is related to consumption but is unrelated to television DMA expenditures. Athletic identity moderated the relationship between recall and consumption such that consumption increased as both recall and athletic identity increased, suggesting a role for motivated memory and motivated processing of ad messages based on athletic identity consistent with the limited capacity model of motivated media message processing. Based on these results, we conclude that effectiveness of expenditures in influencing behavior is dependent upon both ad recall and ad relevance, and that athletic identity is an important factor in ad effectiveness in the context of sports and energy drinks advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the USA, lower income minority ethnic children and teenagers report high consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, which cause dental erosion and dental carries, and play a significant role in overweight, obesity and diabetes. Objective: This study aimed to examine urban adolescents' beliefs about sports and energy drinks to identify factors for health messaging to discourage youth consumption. Design: Focus group study involves 34 adolescents in urban areas (12 women, 12 men and 10 unreported sex; 19 Hispanic, 11 non-Hispanic Black, 2 Asian and 2 unknown race or ethnicity). Setting: Four focus groups were conducted with adolescents in urban areas. Method: Each on-time moderated group discussion was structured to generate an inventory of attitudinal, normative and efficacy beliefs associated with sports and energy drink consumption and reduction. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Results: Attitudinal and normative beliefs were more positive towards sports drink consumption and energy drink reduction. Misperceptions about the need for sports drinks to avoid dehydration during physical activity were evident. Product accessibility and advertising pervasiveness were facilitators influencing consumption and barriers to reduction for both products. Conclusion: Results highlight important differences in perceptions about sports and energy drinks that indicate the need for different approaches and messages for interventions designed to curb consumption of these products. Recommendations for message design are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]