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Discusses the role of food marketing to children and how responsible marketing may facilitate healthy foodways.

Reports research on children as consumers and the consumer socialization process, where the role of media and brands are stronger influencing agents than before. Describes the criticism against child advertisements and the use of entertainment in marketing to children, especially in positioning unhealthy food products. Continues with describing the industry’s response in terms of conducting responsible marketing through self‐regulation.

Suggests that healthy food habits can be facilitated by making healthy food available, by promoting well‐being and through making healthy food entertaining. Several aspects in children’s experiences of fun ought to be considered in the marketing process. Responsible acting among producers and marketers is a way of forming emotional relationships and thus of creating consumer loyalty.

Several parallel actions are suggested to establish healthy food habits; consumer education among children along with legal restrictions and responsible marketing. The cultural meaning of food makes a subject for future research on promoting healthy food habits. It is further suggested that marketers, teachers and nutritionists should learn from each other to establish healthy eating among children and their families.

Responsible marketing in making healthy food attractive to children and their families makes an advantageous alternative satisfying both industry and consumer needs in the long run.

Examines advertisers’ use of gender in food advertising to children. Previous studies of gender preference in children’s advertising suggest gender bias exists. Food products are most often gender‐neutral. Advertising for food products is compared to non‐food advertisements. Examines measures of voice‐over gender, gender of dominant product user, gender of main character, activity level, aggressive behavior level, and soundtrack volume. A sample of food advertisements to children exhibits greater gender preference in presentation than the comparison sample of non‐food advertisements to children. This suggests that food advertising should consider gender bias among other factors when proceeding with self‐regulation of children’s advertising.

Examines aspects of the child′s early experience with food and eating in order to reveal how these experiences shape children′s food acceptance patterns. The transition from suckling to consuming an omnivorous diet is critical to the child′s growth and health. Despite the necessity of a varied diet, children do not readily accept new foods, and are often very neophobic. Repeated experience is necessary to transform the initial neophobic response. The social contexts and physiological consequences of eating also shape children′s food acceptance patterns through associative conditioning, in which foods′ sensory cues are associated with the contexts and consequences of ingestion. Children are responsive to the energy density of foods and can adjust intake based on foods′ energy density. Such responsiveness is easily disrupted when parents employ child‐feeding tactics to control what and how much children will eat. Limited evidence suggests that such child‐feeding practices may focus the child away from hunger and satiety, impeding the development of internal controls of food intake in children.

Looks at how food and drink have been marketed to children over the last 15 years. Shows how the “compression culture” of the 1990s, where parents were cash rich and time poor, combined with trends towards fewer children, dual income families and rising divorce rates to foster parental indulgence of children during “quality time”, and thus to “kid power”. Describes how products became aimed at children, as food manufacturers realised that if they made products that appealed to children and induced them to ask their mothers for it, these products would probably be bought. Moves on to the pressure on companies to produce and advertise healthier foods because of the incidence of childhood obesity, and the responses to this of firms like McDonald’s, Kraft and Kellogg’s: reduction of sugar, fat and salt content and additives, promotion of healthier and more active lifestyles, a switch to targeting mothers instead of children, and use of the internet. Concludes with a list of points for consideration by responsible marketers of foods with high fat, sugar and salt levels: they concern advertising honesty, transparency and balance.

Interviews Jeremy Preston, Director of the Food Advertising Unit in the UK, on the crucial issues of child obesity and health; the FAU was set up in 1995 under the auspices of the Advertising Association. Explains the work of the FAU in acting as a centre for information, communication and research in the field of food advertising, especially in regard to children. Reviews the legislation in various countries which attempts to restrict the amount of advertising to children. Outlines Jeremy Preston’s views that children are more sophisticated than adults think, and that they know how advertising works from a young age; he sees education, exercise and improved labelling as important methods of promoting healthy lifestyles to children.

Leisure centres and health clubs are ideal places for promoting healthy lifestyle. They promote physical exercise and many activities for children, such as swimming, soft play areas, crèche, and team sports. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the food environment for children in leisure centres and health clubs in London.

In total, 67 venues were visited. All food and drink options were recorded and the proportion of “healthy” options was calculated according to the School Food Trust criteria and Nutrient Profiling Model.

In total, 96 per cent of the venues had vending machines and 51 per cent had onsite restaurants/cafés. According to The School Food Trust criteria, only 13 per cent of vending machine drinks, 77.2 per cent of meals, and 24 per cent of snacks would be allowed in school canteens.

The study revealed that a low proportion of healthy foods and drinks were offered to children in Leisure centres in London. However, the survey was only extended to venues in the capital.

The results of the study suggest that new recommendations such as the Healthy Food Code of Good Practice, omitted leisure centres. The findings presented here could provide scientific evidence for campaigns and interventions aimed at improving the quality and the appropriateness of foods and drinks offered to children.

The paper shows that health campaigns and legislation should target leisure centres and health clubs, in order to improve the food and drinks facilities and promote healthy eating, particularly in light of the upcoming Olympic Games in London 2012.

While recent academic research on entomophagy has predominantly focused on adults, the purpose of this child-centred research is to obtain a better understanding of young consumer acceptance of insect-based foods.

Two qualitative studies were conducted with a total of 43 French children aged 8–13 years. Study 1 (n = 22), based on semi-directive interviews, and Study 2 (n = 21), based on focus groups, included projective techniques and exposure to different types of insect-based products to help children express their feelings and thoughts.

The evidence shows that in Western children’s minds, insects are considered as culturally non-edible. Children predominantly reject insects as food because of their sensory properties and the disgust they arouse. However, their interest in eating insect-based food is embedded within experiential contexts specific to childhood, in particular the peer group, which makes insect-eating fun and challenging, and the family, which offers a protective and reassuring setting.

The authors advocate changing children’s sensory perception of insect-eating food through sensory and participatory activities. Manufacturers and policymakers should also draw on children’s peer culture to associate insect-eating with positive social experiences and foster peer influence.

Drawing on cognitive psychology theories and the literature in food science on food rejection, the authors contribute to emerging consumer research on alternative food consumption (AFC) focusing on cognitive, emotional and social factors of acceptance or rejection of insect-based foods by children.

During the COVID-19 pandemic people worldwide in the same household spent more time together and school children engaged in remote learning throughout extended lockdowns and restrictions. The present study aimed to explore parents' perceptions of their involvement and enjoyment in food-related interactions with their children during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-associated lockdowns/restrictions and changes in their children's food intake, especially children's lunches during the remote learning period.

Data from parents (n = 136) were collected via an online survey in 2020. Parents' responses to closed-ended questions were analysed via descriptive statistics and open-ended responses were analysed thematically.

Most parents (62%) reported that they interacted more with their school-aged (5–17 years) children about food during COVID-19 compared to pre-pandemic times. These interactions included cooking, menu planning, eating, conversations around food, and gardening. Most parents (74%) prepared meals with their children during the pandemic and most of them (89%) reported that they enjoyed it. Most parents (n = 91 out of 121) perceived that their children's lunches during remote learning were different to when attending school in person and these changes included eating hot and home-cooked food and more elaborate meals.

This study sheds important insights into a sample of Australian parents' food-related interactions with their school-aged children during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and parents' observations and perceptions of changes in the children's food intake during the remote learning period.

School-aged children living in Montgomery and Troy located in Central Alabama are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. This study used a one-group pre-test–post-test research design to investigate if gardening and nutritional activities could be used as effective intervention to reduce levels of food insecurity among school-aged children. Statistical results found that several of the participants live in urban food deserts. Food insecurity scores were higher for participants in Montgomery compared to those in Troy, AL. The relationship between parental income, household size, and location were important indicators for measuring food insecurity among participants. Recommendations for future research include expanding the scope of study to different sites and climates with larger samples to enhance our understanding of gardening and nutritional educational activities on food insecurity among school-aged children.

Only a handful of studies have examined social interactions between parents and children around food choice, though these have important implications for health. Moreover, we know very little about how socioeconomic status might influence these exchanges, including the nature and outcomes of children’s requests for specific foods and drinks.

Data are from a survey of 401 families with children ages 2-17. Using formal mediation models to decompose direct and indirect effects, we test three potential mechanisms of socioeconomic differences in caregivers’ propensity to indulge children’s requests for specific foods or drinks: (1) Children’s food-seeking behaviors; (2) Caregivers’ nutritional attitudes and values; and (3) Caregiver social control and monitoring of children’s diets. We also present a symbolic indulgence explanation, which is not empirically testable using our data, but is consistent with qualitative evidence (Pugh, 2009).

We find significant SES differences in the frequency and nature of children’s requests for foods, nutritional attitudes and values, and opportunities for caregiver monitoring of children’s eating habits, but these mechanisms explain little of the association between socioeconomic status and caregiver responses.

Limitations of this study include the non-probability sample and the inability to demonstrate the meaning and intention underlying SES effects. Nonetheless, our findings provide information about how SES does and does not influence parent-child interactions around food choice, which has important implications for developing effective policies and interventions for improving children’s diets.

In light of null findings regarding alternative explanations, children’s requests for unhealthy food and parents’ willingness to grant them may be related to cultural practices around parenting that differ by social class. Consequently, culture may be an important yet under-emphasized mechanism contributing to socioeconomic disparities in children’s dietary habits and health.