Parents' and Children's Perceptions of the Ethics of Marketing Energy-Dense Nutrient-Poor Foods on the Internet: Implications for Policy to Restrict Children's Exposure

Mehta, Kiran; Coveney, John; Ward, Paul; Handsley, Elizabeth

doi:10.1093/phe/phu002

Cited by 10 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Parents were concerned about how companies that appear to be a genuine contributor in society may work to normalise brands in communities and influence children’s brand preferences. This is finding is consistent with previous studies that identified parental concerns relating to food marketing influencing children’s preferences and consumption of unhealthy products, through social media platforms ( 29 ) , pester power ( 29 – 31 ) and sports sponsorship ( 21 , 22 ) . However, the present study appears to be the first that highlights parents’ concerns related to the influence that CSR ‘questionable’ strategies may have on children’s consumption.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Are Big Food’s corporate social responsibility strategies valuable to communities? A qualitative study with parents and children

Richards

Phillipson

2017

Public Health Nutr.

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Objective: Recent studies have identified parents and children as two target groups whom Big Food hopes to positively influence through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. The current preliminary study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of parents and children's awareness and interpretation of Big Food's CSR strategies to understand how CSR shapes their beliefs about companies. Design: Community-based qualitative semi-structured interviews. Setting: New South Wales, Australia. Subjects: Parents (n 15) and children aged 8-12 years (n 15). Results: Parents and children showed unprompted recognition of CSR activities when shown McDonald's and Coca-Cola brand logos, indicating a strong level of association between the brands and activities that target the settings of children. When discussing CSR strategies some parents and most children saw value in the activities, viewing them as acts of merit or worth. For some parents and children, the companies' CSR activities were seen as a reflection of the company's moral attributes, which resonated with their own values of charity and health. For others, CSR strategies were in conflict with companies' core business. Finally, some also viewed the activities as harmful, representing a deceit of the public and a smokescreen for the companies' ultimately unethical behaviour. Conclusions: A large proportion of participants valued the CSR activities, signalling that denormalising CSR to sever the strong ties between the community and Big Food will be a difficult process for the public health community. Efforts to gain public acceptance for action on CSR may need greater levels of persuasion to gain public support of a comprehensive and restrictive approach. Abstract Objective: Recent studies have identified parents and children as two target groups whom Big Food hopes to positively influence through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. The current preliminary study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of parents and children's awareness and interpretation of Big Food's CSR strategies to understand how CSR shapes their beliefs about companies. Design: Community-based qualitative semi-structured interviews. Setting: New South Wales, Australia.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Are Big Food’s corporate social responsibility strategies valuable to communities? A qualitative study with parents and children

Richards

Phillipson

2017

Public Health Nutr.

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show abstract

“…Food marketing is known to stimulate children's purchase requests (Story & French, 2004), and previous studies have found that parents readily attribute at least some of their children's pestering behaviours to the very high prevalence of advertising for unhealthy products (Harris, Fleming Milici, Sarda, & Schwartz, 2012;Kelly, Chapman, Hardy, King, & Farrell, 2009;Mehta, Coveney, Ward, & Handsley, 2014;Pettigrew, Chapman, Miller, & Thomas, 2014). As such, efforts to reduce child pestering for soft drinks are needed to address the pervasive marketing of soft drinks in Australia .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors influencing the frequency of children's consumption of soft drinks

et al. 2015

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“…The literature suggests that an effective strategy may be to provide parents with resources that assist them in adopting an authoritative parenting style (as opposed to authoritarian or permissive/indulgent parenting styles), which involves setting and enforcing limits in a warm and supportive environment (Adamo & Brett, 2014;Peters, Dollman, Petkov, & Parletta, 2013). However, previous research also highlights the role of food advertising in triggering pestering (Mehta, Coveney, Ward, & Handsley, 2014), supporting the need for greater restrictions on the nature, a Selecting options 1 or 2 on a 5-point scale semantic differential scale. b Selecting options 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale semantic differential scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%