Why Parents Buy Unhealthy Foods for Their Kids
Are parents losing the battle with their kids to keep them eating healthy? And if so, why?
New research hopes to shed light on these questions.
Recognizable characters and logos prompt children to make repeated requests for a range of products including low nutritional foods and beverages. To better understand the media’s impact on children’s health, a team of researchers examined the “Nag Factor.” The “Nag Factor” is the tendency of children, who are bombarded with marketers’ messages, to unrelentingly request advertised items.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health interviewed 64 mothers of children ages 3 to 5 years between October 2006 and July 2007. Mothers answered questions about the household environment, themselves, their child’s demographics, media use, eating and shopping patterns, and requests for advertised items.
Researchers wanted to explore whether and how mothers of young children have experienced this phenomenon and strategies for coping.
“As researchers continue to investigate factors influencing the childhood obesity epidemic, attention often turns towards the marketing and consumption of junk food,” said Dina Borzekowski, EdD, EdM, MA, senior author of the study and an associate professor with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society.
“Clearly, children are not the primary shoppers in the households, so how do child-oriented, low-nutrition foods and beverages enter the homes and diets of young children? Our study indicates that while overall media use was not associated with nagging, one’s familiarity with commercial television characters was significantly associated with overall and specific types of nagging.
“In addition, mothers cited packaging, characters, and commercials as the three main forces compelling their children to nag.”
Researchers selected mothers as interview subjects because they are most likely to act as “nutritional gatekeepers” for their household and control the food purchasing and preparation for small children.
The researchers found that nagging seemed to fall into three categories: juvenile nagging, nagging to test boundaries, and manipulative nagging.
Mothers consistently cited 10 strategies for dealing with the nagging. The strategies included:
- giving in
- staying calm and consistent
- avoiding the commercial environment
- negotiating and setting rules
- allowing alternative items
- explaining the reasoning behind choices
- limiting commercial exposure
“Our study indicates that manipulative nagging and overall nagging increased with age,” said Holly Henry, MHS, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society.
“When it comes to the most commonly cited strategies for dealing with nagging, 36 percent of mothers suggested limiting commercial exposure and 35 percent of mothers suggested simply explaining to children the reasons behind making or not making certain purchases.
“Giving in was consistently cited as one of the least effective strategies. This unique study offers a platform from which to propose future research and policies to lessen children’s repeated requests for advertised items.”
Borzekowski adds, “To address childhood obesity, it may be necessary to limit the amount of food and beverage advertising shown on commercial television and other media, as this may lessen children’s nagging for unhealthy items.”
The results are published in the August 2011 issue of the Journal of Children and Media.
Source: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
News Editor, P. (2011). Why Parents Buy Unhealthy Foods for Their Kids. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 10, 2016, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/08/16/why-parents-buy-unhealthy-foods-for-their-kids/28621.html