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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 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.

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.

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.

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.

This paper aims to assess Food Variety Score (FVS), Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) and dietary quality of collected complementary foods consumed in Jimma town, southwest Ethiopia.

Multi-stage stratified simple random sampling method was used to identify 384 children who were between 6 to 24 months of age living in Jimma town, Ethiopia. FVS and DDS were assessed based on 24 h recall method. Aliquot of infant’s diet samples were collected from randomly selected 30 household mothers feeding to 6-24 months aged children, and they are combined to get 15 samples by enquiring the ingredients similarly used in preparation. The major nutrients, anti-nutrients were determined with standard procedures. Further, nutrient adequacy and mean adequacy were determined for collected samples.

Results showed that mean FVS was 7.14 ± 4.07 (range 0 to 18) and DDS was 3.44 ± 1.75 (range 1 to 8). Consumption of diversified diet among the studied population significantly associated with residence areas of children’s (p = 0.001), age of the care taker (p = 0.001), occupation of care takers (p = 0.001), monthly income (p = 0.001), average money spent on food purchase per month (p = 0.001). Average mean adequacy of macronutrients (crude protein, crude fat and carbohydrate) was observed as 0.81, micronutrient (Fe, Ca, Zn) mean adequacy was 0.49 and Vitamin A adequacy was 0.34 for the complementary foods. All the complementary foods were reported mean adequacy of < 1 for macro and micro nutrients.

Studies on dietary diversity and dietary quality of the complementary foods were not documented in Jimma town, Ethiopia. The results of this study are highly useful to understand the complementary foods consumption pattern particularly in dietary diversity and food variety. Moreover, results obtained on dietary quality are very useful to recommend further development in complementary food preparations in the study area.

Like many other countries, a reform of school meals policies has been implemented in Portugal, wherein nutritional and health criteria are considered in the design of the public plate. Given that a large literature on school meals focus on cities seen as sites for promising transformation regarding health, resilience and sustainability, it is pertinent to examine how these policies are being received in rural areas. Similar to other vulnerable regions in southern Europe, rural areas in Portugal have been affected by depopulation, the re-localisation of public services (e.g. schools, health centres and courts of justice) to larger conurbations, a drastic reduction of farming areas and its reconversion from sites of production to sites of consumption that thrive on tourism. While research on children’s attitudes, experiences and practices in rural areas had picked up the attention of social scientists, research on children’s relations and engagements with school meals in these areas does not abound. This chapter addresses three issues: first, how the catering staff and health professionals experience children’s engagements with school meals after the policy reform; second, how the discourses of the school staff and parents around the rural and gastro-idylls contrast with the reported food practices and experiences of everyday life, and third, how the multiple engagements of children with animals, plants and other nature conflict with or are juxtaposed to the images of the rural idyll. Drawing from focus groups material with children aged between 7 and 9 years old living in the rural hinterland of an inland medium-size city in Portugal, focus groups with parents and interviews with stakeholders (e.g. school and kitchen staff, local authorities, nutritionists and catering firms) the chapter aims at contributing to a broader understanding of children lived experiences with food consumption in rural contexts.

This study aimed at exploring food related cultural norms that influence rural mothers' food selection for their primary school aged children (aged 4–7 years).

This is a qualitative study conducted in northern parts of Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was applied as the theoretical framework of the study. Within a qualitative research method four focused group interviews with 30 rural mothers were employed to generate data.

The study found that mothers’ food selection for their children was heavily influenced by certain cultural norms that have become taboos with the passage of time. It is evident through findings that subjective norms have a greater influence on mothers' behaviour than their attitude and perceived behavioural control (PBC).

We ensure originality of this research paper as fewer researches have been conducted to further elaborate the link between socio-cultural norms and food selection. In particular, the influence of this close relationship on child health has been of limited consideration in a developing context. This paper has neither been published elsewhere, nor it is currently under consideration for publication in any other journal.

Eating away from home frequency is increasing and is linked with numerous adverse health outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to inform the development of health promotion materials for improving eating away from home behaviors by elucidating related parent and child cognitions.

Parents (n=37) and children (n=35; ages 6–11 years) participated in focus group discussions, based on social cognitive theory. Data were content analyzed to detect themes.

Many parents were concerned about what children ate away from home, however, others were less concerned because these occasions were infrequent. Lack of time and busy schedules were the most common barriers to eating fewer meals away from home. The greatest barrier to ensuring children ate healthfully away from home was parents were not present to monitor children’s intake. To overcome this, parents supervised what kids packed for lunch, provided caregivers instruction on foods to provide, and taught kids to make healthy choices. Kids understood that frequently eating away from home resulted in less healthful behaviors. Barriers for kids to eat healthy when away from home were tempting foods and eating in places with easy access to less healthy food. Kids reported they could take responsibility by requesting healthy foods and asking parents to help them eat healthfully away from home by providing healthy options and guidance.

This study is one of the first to qualitatively analyze parent and child eating away from home cognitions. It provides insights for tailoring nutrition education interventions to be more responsive to these audiences’ needs.