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It is the aim of the present paper to describe the nutritional intake, the physical performance capacity and certain anthropometric variables of a group of schoolchildren (n=297) aged seven to 12 years. The findings on this population may be used to give advice in specific marketing situations.

The subjects were asked to complete a three‐day food diary. During a school visit body weight, stature and skinfold thicknesses were measured. Physical fitness was assessed using items of the Eurofit test battery. Data analysis was carried out as a function of sex and age groups.

The study finds that 77 per cent of all subjects had a caloric intake below the recommended daily allowance (RDA), while 23 per cent had an intake above the RDA. Macronutrient analysis showed for all groups a low carbohydrate intake, a high fat intake, whilst protein intake was just near the upper limit of the RDA. Flexibility, explosive leg strength, abdominal dynamic muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance were significantly lower when comparing these data with data of the 1990s. Significant correlations were found between the BMI values and the sum of skinfolds.

The relations between behavioural characteristics of this age group and adaptations of dysfunctional behaviour, as well as consequences for later life, need to be further established.

Combining the promotion of healthy nutritional and physical activity habits is an appropriate and ethical way to improve the health and fitness status of young consumers. Products may only be linked with health if there is sufficient evidence that the normal use will lead to the pretended health advantages. The interaction with behavioural changes may result in a marketing advantage if the health implications are properly stated.

The paper demonstrated that, at a very young age, nutritional and physical activity habits in the self‐selected population were rather poor.

The purpose of this study is to examine the consumer socialization of preschool age children in a peer‐to‐peer context as they participate in dramatic play in a grocery store setting.

This research employs a case study approach as outlined by Yin. A preschool located within a major metropolitan area in the Southeastern USA was selected for investigation. Located within each of the three classrooms was a grocery store learning center. This learning center provided children the opportunity to engage in dramatic play while enacting grocery shopping scripts. A total of 55 children between the ages of three‐ and six‐years old were observed over a six‐week period. Observations were recorded via field notes and transcribed into an electronic data file. Emergent themes were compared with theoretical propositions, fleshing out an overall interpretation and description of the case context.

Findings indicate that even very young children (ages three to six years) are able to successfully adopt and utilize adult shopping scripts within the grocery store shopping context. The children followed a common sequence of behaviors that mimicked adult shopping patterns. Furthermore, the children demonstrated peer‐to‐peer consumer socialization strategies, directing each other on how to perform appropriate shopping scripts.

This study differs from previous research in that the data reveal that preschool age children do in fact exhibit peer‐to‐peer influence while enacting shopping scripts. Although research has examined children as consumers, no researchers have used dramatic play to study young children in a grocery store setting. The rich content obtained from observing children in dramatic play in a grocery store learning center is unique to the marketing literature and provides a better understanding of the consumer socialization of young children.

The purpose of this paper is to describe health‐related factors and behaviors associated with soy consumption and to present a better identification of a soy consumer's profile at meso‐level.

A total of 104 women and 49 men, 22‐77 years old and employed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, participated in the study. A physical activity questionnaire and a food frequency questionnaire were administered. Body height, weight, waist and hip circumferences, body fat percentage (2‐pole BIA), blood glucose and total blood cholesterol were measured in a fasting state.

Compared with the general population, the sample showed healthier eating habits (breakfast frequency, fruit and vegetable consumption) and lower prevalence of smoking. Women regularly consuming soy had lower waist circumference, body fat percentage and total cholesterol levels than infrequent soy consumers. Men consuming soy foods regularly participated significantly more in high‐intensity physical activities and consumed less meat, poultry and fish.

Owing to recruitment in a university setting, a healthy volunteer effect and socio‐economic bias may exist. Therefore, generalization of the results is not possible and interpretation of the results must be performed with the utmost caution.

It can be concluded that, especially in men, soy consumption fits in a healthy lifestyle.

Regular soy‐consuming women differed from infrequent soy‐consuming women on anthropometrics and cholesterol, while regular consuming men differed behaviorally from infrequent soy‐consuming men. Overall, regular soy consumers were generally more health‐conscious and had better health outcomes.

The purpose of this research is to understand what motivates 7–11-year-old children to participate in online brand communities (OBCs). Prior research has concentrated on prescriptive product categories (games and gaming), predominantly adolescent groups and the social aspects of community engagement and actual behaviour within communities, rather than the motivations to participate with the OBC. This has ultimately limited what has been gleaned, both theoretically and managerially, from this important segment.

An interpretive, longitudinal position is adopted, using a sample of 261 children (113 male and 148 female) from across the UK, using event-based diaries over a 12-month period, generating 2,224 entries.

Data indicate that children are motivated to participate in a brand community for four reasons: to support and ameliorate pre-purchase anxieties, resolve interpersonal conflicts, exact social dominance in terms of product ownership and perceptions of product knowledge and to actively engage in digitalised pester power. The study also reveals that certain motivational aspects such as conflict resolution and exacting dominance, are gender-specific.

Knowledge of children’s motivation to engage with OBCs is important for marketers and brand managers alike as the data reveal markedly different stimuli when compared to known adult behaviours in the field. Given the nature of the study, scope exists for significant future research.

The study reveals behaviours that will assist brand managers in further understanding the complex and untraditional relationships that children have with brands and OBCs.

This study makes a novel examination of a hitherto little-explored segment of consumers. In doing so, it uncovers the theoretical and practical characteristics of child consumers that contemporary, adult-focussed literature does not recognise. The paper makes an additional contribution to theory by positing four new behavioural categories relating to community engagement – dependers, defusers, demanders and dominators – and four new motivational factors which are fundamentally different from adult taxonomies – social hegemony, parental persuasion, dilemma solving and conflict resolution.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and personal drivers of co-creation in children.

A sample of 463 children aged between 7 and 13 years were recruited. Using electronic event-based diaries, 2,631 entries were captured during an 18-month period.

Data from 861 entries identified a series of anomalous external social and personal factors that drove children to engage in co-creation. These were for maintaining external relationships, dealing with addiction to the co-creation process and dealing with personal loneliness.

The study reveals new, unconventional and gender-specific behaviours that might assist marketers in understanding children’s complex relationships with co-creation and brands.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to examine children’s social and personal drives to engage in co-creation.