Pester power

Journal of Consumer Behaviour
/. Consumer Behav. 6: 164-181 (2007) .••"•• ®wiLEY
Published online in Wiley InterScience *4^c t, IfltGrSciGTIC©*
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/cb.217 '%^ D..eo... . c . . . . . . o.,.,
Families, food, and pester power:
Beyond the blame game?
David Marshall^*, Stephanie O'Donohoe^ and Stephen Kline^
'The University of Edinburgh, Management School and Economics, 50 George Square, Edinburgh,
EH8 9JY, Scotland, UK
^Simon Eraser University, School of Communication, Robert C. Brown Hall 7327, Burnaby, BC,
Canada V5A 186
• Given the moral and medical panic surrounding rising rates of childhood obesity, there
has been m.uch debate about who on what is to be blamed, with parents and HFSS (high
fat, salt, and sugar) food advertising often censured for their role. In this paper, we review
the literature on childhood obesity and pester power, and the broader context of
consumer socialization within thefamily. We then discuss findings from a questionnaire
and focus group study of 8-11 year old children in New Zealand exploring aspects of their
advertising experiences and everyday snack food consumption. HFSS food ads were
well-represented in their repertoire offavorite ads, and they reported being influenced by
these. However, their accounts of snacking highlighted the extent to which their actual
consumption was shaped by parental agendas and concerns. Although they gravitated
towards less healthy snack foods, fruit, and vegetables were included in their categor-
ization and repertoire of snacks, perhaps reflecting the level of monitoring and gate-
keeping exerted by their parents, who established ground rules for snacking and in many
cases directly controlled their access to snack foods, although the limits imposed varied
according to context. The children were generally accepting of this, although they drew on
a range of strategies and tactics to access their preferred snacks. We conclude by
considering the implications of this study for parents who seek to provide their children
with a healthy diet and others concerned about health and public policy, and we suggest
some avenues for developing knowledge in this area.
Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Introduction considerable energy devoted to identifying
who should be blamed for children's expand-
Amidst the moral and medical panic surround- . . , . . ,11.11. 1.1
^ mg waistlmes and associated health problems.
ing rising rates of childhood obesity, there has Advertising of foods high in fat, salt, and sugar
been much debate about the influence of food
marketing and parents on children's diet, with p^^icular concern (Hastings et al., 2003;
Ofcom, 2006, 2007), with food marketers'
•Correspondence to: David Marshall, The University of ^^^.^j^.^ Hkened to 'the cynical recruitment of
Edinburgh Management School and Economics, 50 , , , . , , , , ^^,
George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JY, Scotland, UK. malleable children as marketing s fifth colum-
E-mail: david.marshall@ed.ac.uk nists w^ithin the family decision-making unit'
Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-August 2007
DOI: 10.1002/cb

Families, food, and pester power 165
(McDermott etal. (2006: p. 520). On the other
hand, industry spokespeople such as Cebr-
2ynski (2007: p. 16) argue that
It's not advertising that's forcing kids to
overindulge. It's overindulgent parents
who give in to their children's every
whim who are causing kids to be over-
weight ... the assault on advertising as the
major cause of childhood obesity is just a
convenient smoke screen by politicians to
win re-election by winning the votes of
parents who are in denial about their
responsibilities toward their children.
Against this background of debate, denigra-
tion, and denial, we suggest that despite the
extensive research evidence draw^n upon by
different stakeholders, the complexity and
contingencies of family interactions related
to food choice and consumption are stUl not
vell understood. Rejecting reductive accounts
of powerful advertising, pestering children, or
poor parenting, we seek to examine the role of
parents in mediating children's food consump-
tion, and to do so from the perspective of
children themselves and their daily routines. In
this paper, wê review the literature on child-
hood obesity and pester powêr, placing these
issues in the broader context of consumer
socialization within the family. We then
discuss findings from an exploratory study of
children's advertising and food consumption
in New^ Zealand, and consider their implica-
tions for public policy, parental strategies and
further research in this highly contested and
important area.
Obese children
Challenging the term 'obesity epidemic', Gard
and Wright (2005) point to the heady mix of
'science, morality and ideology' surrounding
contemporary discourse on obesity. None-
theless, there are certainly grounds for concern
about the 20 million children under the age of
five, and the 155 million school children who
are overweight or obese (WHO, 2006; Lobstein
et al., 2004). Excess weight increases the risk
of health problems such as type 2 diabetes and
cardiovascular diseases, and obesity in early life
has significant consequences for psychosocial
development as well as physical health
(Lobstein et al., 2004). Reviewing 25 years
of international evidence, Wang and Lobstein
(2006: p. 13) conclude that 'the prevalence of
childhood obesity is increasing in almost all
industrialized countries for which data are
available'. By 2010, they estimate that among
school children, the proportion who are
overweight or obese will range from 22 per
cent in South East Asia to over A6 per cent in
the Americas. In New Zealand, 31 per cent of
5-14 year olds were found to be overweight or
obese in 2002 (Ministry of Health, 2003), with
the proportion increasing by more than one
percentage point each year (Wang and
Lobstein, 2006).
Obesity and overweight are caused by 'an
energy imbalance between calories consumed
on the one hand, and calories expended on the
other hand' (WHO, 2006). However, as Young
(2005: p. 51) notes, this in/out metaphor 'does
not refiect the reality of paediatric obesity
where a complex interaction of genetic,
environmental and behavioral factors is held
responsible'. In industrialized, economically
developed countries, children in the lowêst
socioeconomic groups, and those from
specific ethnic or racial groups, may be
particularly vulnerable to overweight and
obesity (Wang and Lobstein, 2006). This is
true of New Zealand, w^here rates of obesity
and overweight ranged from 62 per cent for
Pacific children and 41 per cent for Maori
children to 24 per cent for New Zealand
European/other children (Ministry of Health,
2003). Such differences are unlikely to be
caused by ethnicity alone; indeed a recent
study found the association between the
population's socioeconomic status and body
fat was modified by both gender and ethnicity
(Ministry of Health, 2006).
Other factors identified as contributing to
childhood obesity include parental obesity and
food provisioning practices, increasingly seden-
DOI: 10.1002/cb

166 David Marshall et aL
tary lifestyles, including the time spent watch-
ing television, playing video games or using a
computer, greater reliance on snacks and con-
venience foods, greater intake of energy dense
foods, the rise of fast food culture, and of
course pervasive and persuasive food pro-
motion of foods high in fat, salt and sugar that
encourages children to buy them or pester
their parents to do so (Kline, 2004; Boynton-
Jarrett et al., 2003; Hastings et al, 2003;
Which?, 2006; Ayadi and Young, 2006). Many
of these factors are evident in New Zealand
lifestyles. The country was one of the top ten
global markets for fast food consumption in
2004, wîth 29 per cent of the population eating
in a fast food restaurant at least once a week
(AC Nielsen, 2005), and an increase of 88 per
cent in sales of takeaway foods since 2002
has recently been reported (Statistics New^
Zealand, 2007). Children aged 5-14 typically
spend more than two hours each day wâtching
television (New Zealand Television Broad-
casters' Council, 2005). Such viewing not only
represents sedentary activity but also consider-
able exposure to food advertising; analyzing
New Zealand children's television advertising,
Wilson et al. (2006) found that 37 per cent
of commercials were for food, and of these,
70 per cent were for products 'counter to
improved nutrition'. Furthermore, fast food
advertising intensified considerably as week-
day afternoon slots progressed, suggesting the
targeting of children near mealtimes to
encourage parental requests.
Persuasive children — and
passive parents?
Various studies have examined how children
develop increasingly nuanced persuasive strat-
egies over time, progressing from pointing to
or grabbing desired items from supermarket
shelves to asking, begging, screaming, or whin-
ing, and then on to bargaining, persuading, and
using emotional strategies (RoedderJohn, 1999;
Palan and Wilkes, 1997; Marquis, 2004). Along
the wây, they also acquire considerable knowl-
edge of how their parents respond to these
strategies (Caruana and Vassallo, 2003). In
recent years, there has also been considerable
emphasis on children's growing inflvience and
autonomy with respect to consumption, attri-
buted to factors such as declining birth rates,
smaUer family sizes, dual-income families, higher
divorce rates, the commercialization of child-
hood and the 'KGOY' (kids getting older
younger) phenomenon (Lindstrom and Sey-
bold, 2003; Schor, 2004).
Measures of children's influence are typi-
cally based on asking children, parents or both
to rate the child's level of influence on purchas-
ing overall, on a range of product categories,
and/or on various stages of the decision-
making process. Not surprisingly, children
tend to rate themselves as more influential
than their parents believe them to be (Erduran,
1999). The product category also plays a role,
with children reported as having greater
influence on purchases such as cereal (Aitkin,
1978; Mehrota and Jurges, 1997), snacks and
takeaway food (Brody et al., 1981; Hall et al,
1995). Children's influence on family decision-
making also appears to vary wîth the age of the
child, the stage and type of decision process,
and parental and family characteristics, includ-
ing family communication patterns (Mangel-
burg, 1990; Moschis and Moore, 1979; Rose
et al, 2002).
Noting that children's 'nagging' drove
34 per cent of sales in the food category. Morales
(2000: p. 37) argued that '[t]he most important
questions for the marketer to children are -
what percentage of sales are driven by children
and can this be improved upon?' Since then,
'pester power' has been denigrated by critics
and denied by advertisers to the extent that
Morales appears naive in linking advertising so
explicitly to the 'nag factor'. In a recent review^
of research in this area, McDermott et al.
(2006: p. 514) re-examined a subset of studies
from the original Food Standards Agency
review (Hastings et al, 2003) for evidence
concerning the relationship between advertis-
ing and children's attempts to influence their
parents' food purchases. Based on twelve
studies (with the core five dating from the
DOI: 10.1002/cb

1970s and 1980s), they concluded that there
was '.. .strong evidence that food promotion
does encourage children to request food
purchases from their parents' (p. 532). At its
best, they argue, pester power leads to
'gratuitous tension in parent-child relation-
ships', and at its worst it leads to 'exasperated
purchases of items against a parent's better
judgement - including food they consider
unhealthy, but that the child insists on having"
(pp. 514-515).
Underpinning such arguments are several
assumptions that are open to challenge, how-
ever. Even the notion of 'gratuitous tension in
parent-child relationships' is an interesting
one; tension may be healthy, offering oppor-
tunities to teach children how to see a situation
differently, or from someone else's perspect-
ive, and in the case of food purchase requests
could stimulate discussion about diet and
nutrition. The suggestion that pester power
leads at worst to 'exasperated purchases of
items against a parent's better judgement' is
also problematic. It assumes that parents have
good nutritional knowledge, and would, if left
to their own devices, prioritize healthy food in
all cases. In a study undertaken on behalf of
British food advertisers, Spungin (2004)
reports that although 80 per cent of parents
had been asked by their children to buy an
advertised food product, only 14 per cent
admitted to letting their child try such a
product without vetting it; 48 per cent claimed
that they would first consider its nutritional
value, while 33 per cent said that they would
check the cost. Furthermore, Hughner and
Maher (2006) found that American parents
lacked the nutritional knov^^ledge to make
informed choices about healthy food. In any
case they saw feeding their children as more
than a means of providing nutrients: it wâs also
a way of treating or rewarding them, making
them happy, or helping them fit in with their
peers. Indeed, as an industry analyst recently
observed,'.. .many parents may actively solicit
a kid's input on brand or product choices,
though the parent remains the gatekeeper
(Longman, 2003: p. 29). In this context,
Spungin (2004) found that when food shop-
ping for the family, 'what children prefer' was
parents' most important consideration after
'nutritional value' (Spungin, 2004).
Furthermore, while few parents would deny
that children pester (regardless of the context),
if the concern is ultimately about children's
unhealthy eating, we also need to understand
more about what happens after children
pester their parents to buy unhealthy food:
how do parents respond, what do they buy,
and how easily or frequently do children have
access to it at home? Indeed, two of the
observational studies cited by McDermott etal
(2006) found children's influence attempts
wêre successful roughly half the time; in other
cases mothers ignored, denied or deflected
their requests. Yet their verdict on pester
powêr implies that howêver noble and singular
parents' motivation may be, it is not strong
enough to wîthstand their children's pestering,
nor does it lead the parent to reflect on the
interaction and how they could in future avoid
going against their better judgement.
Presumably as parents accumulate experi-
ences of being pestered - for particular foods
or the plethora of other goods or concessions
that children constantly seek - they too
develop skills in responding to requests in
order to meet their own goals. Within the
consumer research literature, Friestad and
Wright (1994) developed a Persuasion Knowl-
edge Model to account for consumers' 'folk
knowledge of persuasion'. According to this
model, know^ledge about marketer tactics is
acquired by osmosis, observation and reflec-
tion as consumers go about their daily
business. Over time, consumers become
'resourceful participants who pursue their
own goals and have the ability to select res-
ponse tactics from their own repertoire...'
(p. 3). Although this model has been used to
characterize consumers' responses to market-
ers' actions, we might expect parents to
develop wêll-honed antennae related to their
children's attempts to influence them. Parents'
persuasion knowledge is also likely to include
beliefs about pester power as a marketer tactic,
and their own goals and tactics for coping
with it.
DOI: 10.1002/cb

168 David Marshall et al.
Families and food: the consumer
socialization context
Although advertising features heavily in the
debate surrounding childhood obesity, market-
ers' attempts to influence children's food pre-
ferences need to be understood in the broader
context of peer and family relations (Living-
stone and Helsper, 2004; Story and French,
2004; Young, 2003). Examining 7-11 year
olds' evaluations of different kinds of food,
for example, Piacentini and Tinson (2003)
found that peers were more likely to evaluate
unhealthy choices positively. Parents, how-
ever, are the key agents of early socialization
with respect to food habits and preferences
(Hughner and Maher, 2006). In a very practical
sense, parents wield influence through the
purchase and provision of specific foods. In the
case of snack foods, for example, although
children may have some input into decisions,
Davis and White (2006) remind us that '.. .in
most situations, the parents act as gatekeepers
and actually purchase the products, pack the
school lunches or provide the money for the
purchase.'
Parents also shape children's food habits and
preferences by what they know and teach their
children about diet and nutrition, and by the
example they set in their own food-related
practices. For example. Hill etal (1998) found
that mothers - the main source of nutrition
information for their sample of New Zealand
adolescents - tended to label unhealthy food as
'treats'. Similarly, in Britain, Curtis and Fisher
(2007) found that although parents of obese
children ^vere concerned about their wêight,
they wêre reluctant to deny them 'treats',
which were tied in to family systems of reward
and punishment, but tended to be seen more
as a right than as a privilege. Parents also
continued to buy foods that they expected
their children to avoid. The children acknowl-
edged their own poor dietary practice, but felt
their parents should be better informed and
take more responsibility for what they ate.
At the other end of the spectrum from the
'overindulgent parents' lambasted by Cebr-
zynski (2007) are those parents establishing
firm control over their children's diet. As Birch
and Fisher (1999: p. 405) observe, restricting
access to HFSS foods 'may appeal to parents as
a straightforward and logical wây to limit
children's intake...'. They identify a range of
parental strategies in this respect, such as
keeping particular foods out of reach, allowing
them in limited quantities, on special
occasions only, or as a rewârd for finishing
portions of healthier food. However, they wârn
that imposing strict parental controls can be
counter-productive, as it
'.. .can potentiate preferencesfor high fat,
energy-densefoods, limit children's accep-
tance of a variety of foods, and disrupt
children's regulation of energy intake by
altering children's responsiveness to
internal cues of hunger and satiety. This
can occur when well-intended but con-
cernedparents assume that children need
help in determining what, when, and how
much to eat and when parents impose
child-feeding practices that provide chil-
dren with few opportunities for self-
control' (Birch and Fisher, 1998: p. 539).
Method
This paper draws on an exploratory study,
conducted in New Zealand in May 2005, which
sought to understand 8-11 year old children's
everyday experiences, routines and influence in
relation to snacking and snack food choices.
Amidst concerns about the role of food
marketing in childhood obesity, the focus on
pester power may have diverted attention from
the broader family context offood consumption.
For example, although parents are the primary
socialization agents, few marketing studies have
examined their role in shaping children's eating
habits, with the recent work of Hugliner and
Maher (2006) a valuable exception.
The literature on children's influence may be
seen as limiting the scope of inquiry in other
respects. In the past, it has been criticized for
relying heavily on parental accounts and
simplistic classifications of passive or active
DOI: 10.1002/cb

involvement in decision-making (Mangleburg,
1990). As has been the case for research on
advertising to children in general (Lawlor and
Prothero, 2002; Bartholomew and O'Donohoe,
2003), too few studies in this area have solicited
views directly from children themselves, or
indeed attempted to understand children's
everyday experiences and perspectives related
to food-related negotiation and choice. In tliis
study, we sought accounts from 8-11 year olds
of their experiences, since children at this age
can typically not only articulate what are likely
to be quite well-established food repertoires and
routines, but also think in more abstract ways,
not least about marketing exposure and influ-
ences (Roedder John, 1999).
Our focus here is on snack foods, w^hich are
often seen as directly relevant and appealing to
children; indeed, in many ways snacks
represent the antithesis of adult ideas about
how^ to eat 'properly' Qames, 1979) and are
peripheral to a food system revolving around
nutritionally balanced meals (Marshall, 2005).
The snack food industry is still growing
internationally (Kidd, 2006) but often criti-
cized for making products that are high in the
fat, salt and sugar content, decried by nutri-
tionists and health campaigners, and marketing
them to children in ways w^hich have been
deemed irresponsible (Which?, 2006). Parental
decisions around snacks may well involve
some input from the children, since they are
often seen as 'treats', and since individual
preferences can be accommodated more easily
here than in family meals. As many food habits
and practices are established in childhood
(Hughner and Maher, 2006), children's
exposure to and choices regarding foods not
normally associated with a healthful diet may
have significant implications for their future. In
this study, then, wê sought to explore
• children's experiences of snacking and their
own categorization and classification of
snack foods associated wîth these occasions.
• the extent to which children see their snack
consumption as mandated and regulated by
the family and their respective input into
those family decisions.
• the reported influence of advertising on
their food preferences and requests.
• their ow^n accounts of discretionary spend-
ing and the extent to which they bought
snacks with their pocket money.
The focus group guide had been piloted with
Canadian school children in a broader study
related to childhood obesity (Kline, 2005). Access
wâs gained through twô primary schools in
Dunedin, selected through personal contacts.
These schools were ranked highly and although
they wêre mixed in terms of ethnicity, they
were attended by predominantly middle-class
children. Permission to talk to the children wâs
granted by the head teacher w^ho approved this
wîth the classroom teachers and parents.
Focus groups were used to solicit children's
ow^n accounts of their everyday food experi-
ences and explore the issues that were relevant
to them in a flexible and open manner (Gunter
and Furnham, 1998). In total, 96 children took
part in the study, with four focus groups
conducted in each school - two with year 4
(typically aged 8-9) and two with year 6
(typically aged 10-11). Held in staffrooms, they
lasted an average of 30 minutes each. In line
wîth common practice the majority of the
groups were single-sex (Guber and Berry,
1993). The children also completed a short
questionnaire about their after school activi-
ties, snacking habits and pocket money, allow-
ing some quantification of issues raised in the
focus groups. Given the focus of our study, we
did not ask the children about their weight or
make any judgments about who wîthin our
sample might have been overweight or obese.
The focus groups were transcribed and
analyzed using the constant comparative metliod
to identify themes emerging from the data, and
the data from the questionnaires were cleaned,
coded and analyzed using SPSSXV13.
Findings
Promoting snacks
Concerns about advertising and pester powêr
raise the question of how the promotion of
snack foods features in these children's
DOI: 10.1002/cb

170 David Marshall et al
accounts. When asked if they had any favorite
ads, their answers extended beyond those
targeting them, referring to ads for retail
outlets, car insurance, tyres and trucks as well
as toys and food products. This is not to say
that they were particularly enthusiastic about
advertising; a number of those children wêre
unable to recall any advertising or cite favorite
ads, and one boy taking part in the focus
groups commented that
A: .. .sometime when you listen to a
cartoon or something and it gets to a real
goodpart and an ad comes along and you
just want to throw a wobbly and throw a
brick at the television to make itgo (School
B, boys year 4).
Food ads represented one-third of the
favorites cited by the children in the survey.
These covered a wide range of brands but cen-
tered on confectionery, fast foods and drinks.
In the focus groups, the campaigns remem-
bered or discussed by the children tended to
be regarded as fimny. Although attention and
recall are common measures of advertising
effectiveness, there wêre some indications that
such ads wêre seen as entertaining in their own
right and not necessarily associated with
potential purchases. Thus, while the children
talked about certain characters, storylines, or
specific scenes from various ads, they did not
necessarily make the connection to a brand
name, apart from certain toys and brands of fast
food (McDonalds, Burger King, Subway),
confectionery (Cadburys, Starburst), and drinks
(Coke, MUo). Many of these foods would fall
into the HFSS categories, reflecting the con-
cerns over heavy advertising of these products
on television (Hastings et al, 2003; Wilson
et al, 2006). Of course, w^hile ads not
discussed in terms of their featured brand
may still trigger brand recognition at the point
of sale, independent consumption of ads and
brands has been observed in research with
older audiences (Ritson and Elliott, 1999;
O'Donohoe, 1994).
Clearly, children are exposed to snack food
brands in a range of different everyday
contexts - at home, at school, w^hen visiting
friends or shopping with parents, for example,
and so television and advertising are just part of
this complex interaction with snack foods.
Nonetheless, in the survey 67 per cent of the
children reported that food advertisements
made them feel hungry 'sometimes' or 'often'.
More generally, 78 per cent stated that seeing
an advertisement on television made them
wânt to buy the product 'sometimes' or 'often'.
Asked if they ever pestered their parents for
something they had seen advertised on televi-
sion, 66 per cent reported doing so 'some-
times' or 'often', w^hereas 18 per cent 'never'
did. In the focus groups, a number of the
children talked about asking parents for things
they saw advertised on television, but few felt
their pestering would have any major impact
on their parents' decision. Discussion of their
everyday experiences related to snack foods
offer some insights into why this might be the
case.
Snack foods and snacking occasions
Snacking was an integral part of the children's
everyday food experiences and many of their
accounts of eating at home or in school
reflected this. They saw^ themselves as the
primary consumers of snacks in the household,
and their accounts shoved an understanding
of where snacks fitted into broader dietary
practice, informed by their experiences ^vithin
the household (Moschis and Smith, 1985;
Ward, 1974). The term 'junk food' for example
wâs bandied about in the groups, sometimes
contrasted with healthier options preferred by
parents. As Davis and White (2006) observe,
knowing what is good to eat is not the same as
choosing it, but at least children's categoriz-
ation of snacks extended beyond the usual
HFSS suspects (crisps, confectionary, carbo-
nated soft drinks, sugary breakfast cereals, and
fast food) to include savory snacks such as
beans on toast and bacon rolls as well as the
healthier options of fruits and vegetables.
In the survey, over one-third of the children
reported eating meals in front of the television.
DOI: 10.1002/cb

with just over a quarter 'never' or 'rarely' doing
so. This practice has been associated wîth
lower consumption of fruits and vegetables,
and increased consumption of pizza, snack
foods, and carbonated soft drinks (Coon et al,
2001). Consistent with this, some children
recounted eating pizza w^hile watching televi-
sion at home. Although eating meals in front of
the television was less commonly reported,
snacking appeared to be an integral part of TV
viewing and featured in many focus group
accounts:
INT: Do you ever have anything to eat
while you are watching these programs?
HA: Sometimes I eat my left over eat that I
had from lunchtime and lots of fruits.
INT: OK, lots of fruits.
HA: And vegetables like carrots.
INT: And when you are eatingfood do you
get to choose thefood or doyour mum and
dad chose itfor you?
P: I chose (School A, boys, year 4)
Consistent with this, 57 per cent claimed to
have TV snacks 'often' or 'almost every day',
whereas only 19 per cent 'never' or 'rarely' did
so. Chips (or crisps) were the most popular
option in this context, consumed by 23 per
cent, followed by fmits/vegetables (17%) and
biscuits/cakes (15%). Less popular TV snacks
included chocolate, 'lollies', popcorn, ice
cream, and savory 'mini meals' such as cheese
and crackers or sandwiches. Thus snack foods,
including the less healthy options, appeared to
be part of a regular routine and 'expected'
rather than 'exceptional' treats (Curtis and
Fisher, 2007^.
Although fruits and vegetables featured in
children's repertoire of TV snacks, these
findings reinforce concerns that children's
sedentary lifestyles are compounded by associ-
ation with consumption of less healthy foods
(Kline, 2005). The children who snacked in
front of the television most often were also the
ones most likely to eat dinner frequently while
watching television. Sometimes this was
because the television set was located in the
dining area or could be viewed from the table,
but in other cases the children ate their meals
seated in front of the television. Sitting in front
of a screen wâs not alwâys associated wîth
snacking, however; eight out of ten children
stated that they 'never' or 'rarely' snacked
while using the computer. This is hardly
surprising, since it is more difficult to eat
and use a keyboard simultaneously, but it
suggests that different forms of sedentary
screen time are implicated to different degrees
in childhood obesity.
Of course, snack food consumption did not
depend on television watching. Most of the
children talked about having something to eat
when they came home from school mid-
afternoon to 'tide them over' until teatime,
for example, and around 40 per cent snacked
'often' or 'almost every day' after playing
sports. Again, a variety of foods, healthy and
less healthy, wêre consumed in these contexts.
Parental roles
Although we did not ask children about their
parents' employment status, we subsequently
learned that about 60 per cent of the children
had working mothers, not all of whom were
employed full-time. This is broadly consistent
with New Zealand employment patterns; the
proportion of mothers in employment ranges
from 43 per cent (when the youngest child is
under three) to 75 per cent (when the young-
est child is aged 6-14). Among the working
mothers, 54 per cent are part-time when their
youngest child is under six and 41 per cent
when the youngest child is aged 6-14
(Adema, 2006). Therefore, many children
had a mother waiting for them when they
came home from school, although other
arrangements (such as going to an after school
activity or being looked after by grandparents)
were mentioned.
Some children reported considerable auto-
nomy in choosing snacks. When wâtching TV,
for example.
DOI: 10.1002/cb

N: Well we just get anything from the
cupboard. We don't usually have to ask we
just help ourselves.
INT: What would you go and get - biscuits
or crisps or would you tend to get stuff like
yoghurt or fruits?
N: Ijust go and get biscuits and something
like that.
INT: OK what about T?
T: I get lollies, chocolate, chips, and just
some sweets and stuff.
(School A, girls, year 6).
Although children's snack food repertoires
tended towards the unhealthy, parents -
particularly mothers - played a key role in
overseeing what was eaten on their children's
return from school. For these children, the
school lunch box check was an integral part of
this process: children were required to bring
home any uneaten food from their lunchbox so
their parents could monitor what had been
eaten at school. Several spoke about having to
finish off uneaten school lunch when they
came home instead of having a snack, or as a
condition of being allowêd to have a snack. For
example, when asked if she ate while wâtching
television, one year 4 girl replied that 'some-
times I don't eat my lunch so I eat the rest of
that before Dad gets home or he gets really
angry...'
In general, the children indicated that it
tended to be the parents who decided w^hether
they could have a snack, and if so, what it
would be. Parents' attempts to control chil-
dren's access to and consumption of snack
foods are well documented (Birch etal., 1999),
and here too the children's choices generally
seemed to be subject to parental approval. In
the survey, 32 per cent reported that their
parents limited what they snacked on in the
house 'often' or 'almost every day', compared
with 45 per cent who were 'sometimes'
limited and 23 per cent w^hose snacking was
'never' or 'rarely' limited. However, since
parents are typically responsible for purchas-
ing the family's food, even those children wîth
'unrestricted' choice may still not have access
to high fat, sugar, and salt products.
Reflecting the complexities of domestic rou-
tines (Mangelburg, 1990; Wilson and Wood,
2004), the children's influence appeared to
vary according to the situation and indeed how
well received their preferred option was. They
mentioned two broad strategies when it came
to requesting snacks: simply asking their
parents for something to eat, or taking some-
thing first and then asking. Very few^ children
had free access to snacks at home, although
this varied by the type of snack; fruit and
healthy snacks were more freely accessible
than high sugary snacks. There were a number
of individual variations on those general rules.
For example, one girl was allowed to get
biscuits herself but had to ask her mother if she
wanted to open a new packet. In other cases
the children talked about their mothers
preparing their snacks or vetoing their choices,
although some reported resorting to 'sneaking'
or subterfuge to obtain their preferred
supplies:
5.' Well sometimes my mum makes me like
a toasted sandwich orI have something ifI
haven't eaten it I have something from my
lunch box. As it is really nice sometimes I
sneak a [tape inaudible] and I sneak
biscuits and packs of chips and stuff and
sandwiches
INT: All right what about AS?
AS: I usually come home put my bag and
stuff away andi askfor a glass ofm,ilk and
a doughnut or something and she say yes
or no. Like No and I am like I willjust get it
myself and she always says no and she
always gets annoyed and says well go and
get a sandwich.
INT: So she would rather you had a
sandwich than a yoghurt or a biscuit or
something?
DOI: 10.1002/cb

AS: Yes she likes me to eat healthy...
V: I sometimes take my icepops and freeze
them, when she is gone and then I would
eat it really fast at one stage I was doing
my homework and had the TV on and
don't know she was coming up until I
heard the door. And I switched it off and I
just said even though she had seen it
(laughs over words) I made the excuse she
tnust have been imagining it
(School A, girls, year 6).
Some children talked about secretly raiding
the cupboard (at least that is how they
perceived it), and the fim of helping them-
selves to forbidden or restricted food. This
echoes Miller's (1998) idea that access to the
forbidden is part of the transition towards
more independence and in itself can be a site of
conflict betw^een mother and child. However,
it also raises questions about the impact of
prohibiting access to certain foods and allow^-
ing imrestricted access to others, as Birch and
Fisher (1998) have also found.
Negotiation and school snacks
While negotiation over snacking at home often
took place in real time, school snacks involve a
degree of negotiation in advance of the event.
Most of the children took a packed lunch to
school, typically comprising a sandwich or
bread roll with filling accompanied by some
type of 'snack' item such as crisps, fruit, or
confectionary bar. A number of the children
requested that certain lunch box snacks
were included and this usually involved
some negotiation or trading off the healthy
options - fruits - with the less healthy - savory
or sweet snacks. This idea of balance between
good and bad foods was not discussed directly
but implied in the talk about school lunches.
Thus children were included in the decisions
about their lunch box and snacks. While the
selection was not entirely free, in the sense
that it depended on what was permitted by
their parents and what was available on the
day, they saw their input as important. Being
given a say in what was included, they had
some responsibility to uphold their side of the
bargain and eat up their lunch. This resonates
with several other studies that have acknowl-
edged children's agency and represented them
as actively engaged in and contributing to
family practices (Bandura, 1977; Christensen,
2004; Curtis and Fisher, 2007).
The policy of children returning home with
any uneaten food in their lunchbox allowed
parents to monitor what had been eaten, and
where desired address this with the children.
Of course that is not to say that the children did
not trade certain foods and snacks with other
children over the lunch break or remove
unwanted contents. In the focus groups,
however, there was no reference to subverting
that process; in fact the children seemed very
accepting of such scrutiny and requirements to
eat up their 'lunch food'.
Snacks and shopping
Another area where the children attempted to
exert some influence was in the store when
shopping with their parents. Most of the
children reported going grocery shopping
with their parent(s). These shopping trips
represented another opportunity to snack, and
to have their preferences taken into account.
In one group, this was seen to be particularly
the case when fathers were doing the shop-
ping:
S:.. .1 think the best time to go to the
supermarket is with your dad.
INT Why is that?
S: Because he lets you buy all the chocolate
things.
M. Yeah, my dad lets me do that.
G: Only if my dad likes it too
DOI: 10.1002/cb

M: My dad says when I go with him I only
go with hint because usually he says I will
get you that bar if you share it with me.
(School B, girls and boys, year 6)
In the survey, almost half (45%) reported
that their parents 'never' or 'rarely' limited
their choice of snacks when shopping, 27 per
cent did so 'sometimes', and 29 per cent
restricted it more often. Such reported indul-
gence of children's preferences in this context
may suggest that grocery shopping was seen as
an occasion for treating children (and their
parents), again supporting Curtis and Fisher's
(2007: p. 15) contention that food treats 'have
become firmly embedded within, and normal-
ized as part of, the family food environment'.
Consistent wîth other studies (Aitkin, 1978;
Brodye^«/., 1981; Mehrota and Jurges, 1997),
the children reported making frequent
requests in the breakfast cereal, confectionary
and snack aisles. They also saw themselves as
having an input into other purchases, includ-
ing meal items. Some of their requests related
to school lunch snacks, and could be con-
sidered reasonable and legitimate in that
context, as discussed above; this is consistent
with Longman's (2003) argument that parents
might actively solicit requests. Other requests
met wîth responses ranging from outright
refusal to agreement. Consistent wîth the
Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad and
Wright, 1994), a range of strategies appeared
to be used on both sides. Some of the children
saw^ these occasions as game-playing and had
various gambits at their disposal, such as trying
to put items directly into the shopping basket,
although if their parents realized what was
going on and did not approve they had to put
such items back. There was however little
sense of 'gratuitous tension' or parents
succumbing to insistent demands from their
children (McDermott et al., 2006).
Discretionary spending?
While much of what the children ate was
provided by their parents, there was also the
option ofusing their ow^n allowânces or gifts of
money to buy snacks. Some of the children^
reported getting a weekly allowance, typically
$5NZ^ per week. The vast majority saved their
pocket money, putting it towards holidays,
toys or games. Sweets and snacks did not
feature very much in the focus group discus-
sions about spending money. When asked in
the survey w^hat snack items they would spend
their money on there was a wîde range of
responses but the largest single category was
sweets/lollies (21.8%), drinks (juice/water)
(16%) followed by chocolate (14.3%). Fizzy
drinks accounted for a tenth of the responses
(11.1%) wîth chips and ice cream also
mentioned. It was not clear whether this
spending wâs sanctioned or regulated by their
parents but it indicates a gravitation towards
HFSS products. The fact that only 37 per cent
of children responded to this question in the
survey may imply that many relied on their
parents to buy their snacks, preferring to save
their money for other items. If children spend
relatively little of their ow^n income on snacks,
it seems that much of their consumption in this
area was subject to parental provisioning and
gatekeeping.
Varying degrees of influence
Asked in the survey w^ho generally influenced
their snack foods choices, 52 per cent said
their parents mostly chose, with the remainder
saying they chose themselves. Although this
may be interpreted as a sign of children's
considerable influence in this area of food
consumption, the study highlights the con-
tingent nature of their influence.
According to the children in this study,
parental limits on snacking varied by occasion,
as summarized in Table 1. Limits wêre
imposed less often on snacks consumed w^hen
out shopping or bought wîth the children's
ow^n money than on those consumed at home.
'Around 68 percent of those who answered the question
got pocket money. However, 24 per cent of the survey
respondents did not respond to the question.
Ône $NZ ^vas approximately £0.5 sterling during this
period.
DOL 10.1002/cb

Table 1. Parental limits on snacking, children's purchases and response to requests for snack food
Do your
parents limit? ...
What you snack
on in the house?
What you snack on
when out for shopping?
What you buy with
your own money?
If you ask for a
snack food, will your
parents buy it?
(M)
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Almost every day
(96)
7.3
15.6
44.8
11.5
20.8
(94)
26.6
18.1
26.6
14.9
13.8
(89)
32.6
12.4
23.6
19.1
12.4
(94)
8.5
14.9
56.4
13.8
6.A
A sense of contingency may also be inferred
from the high proportion of 'sometimes'
reported when the children were asked how
often their parents limited ^vhat they snacked
on in the house or bought a snack food in
response to their request. This reflects the
focus group accounts indicating that parental
decisions often took into account factors such
as the time of the day, what else the child had
eaten and how close the request was to a
mealtime.
Discussion and conclusions
Before reviewing ourfindingsand considering
their implications, we should acknowledge the
limitations of our study, 'which wâs small in
scale and focused on the experiences of
predominantly middle class New Zealand
children living in Dunedin. Furthermore, our
findings are presented wîthout reference to
the weight, BMI or ethnicity of the children
involved, or the views of their parents
regarding the provision and consumption of
snack foods. While further studies in this area
would benefit from exploring such differ-
ences, we hope that our current findings
stimulate some fresh thinking about the
marketer-child-parent chain of influence in
relation to snack food promotion and con-
sumption. As Young (2005: p. 50) argues, in
order for knowledge to advance, we need to
remain vigilant in questioning not only evi-
dence, but also 'whether the wâys of thinking,
the frames we erect to understand the
processes, are relevant to the questions being
asked'.
Two-thirds of the children in this study
reported that food ads 'often' or 'sometimes'
made them feel hungry, and it was clear from
the survey and the focus groups that many ads
for HFSS snack foods appealed to them. The
weight of advertising for such foods (Wilson
et al, 2006) did not appear to have translated
into a narrow^ and exclusively unhealthy
categorization of snack food for these children,
however: although the snacks described by the
children in this study tended towards the usual
HFSS suspects, fruit and vegetables were also
considered appropriate and consumed in this
context - perhaps because so much of the
children's food consumption was regulated by
parents. While it may be argued that mid-
dle-class parents are more likely to encourage
fruit and vegetables to be consumed as snacks,
it is worth noting that Hill et al (1998) found
fruit to be a 'convenient' and 'common' snack
among New Zealand adolescents from a range
of socioeconomic backgrounds.
Certainly, the 8-11 year olds in this study did
not seem to have 'overindulgent parents who
give in to their children's every whim'
(Cebrzynski, 2007). Again, perhaps related to
our largely middle class samples, much of their
snack food consumption appeared to be
regulated or sanctioned by their parents as
part oftheir families' broader food routines and
practices. Parents monitored their eating, for
example through the lunchbox check, and
served as gatekeepers at the point of purchase
and in the home. Although two-thirds of the
Copyright © 2007 Jolin Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-August 2007
DOI: 10.1002/cb

children reported pestering their parents for
something they had seen advertised on televi-
sion, there wâs little evidence of market-
er-induced 'gratuitous tension' (McDermott
etal., 2006), at least in the children's accounts
of their purchase influence attempts. The
children generally appeared to accept their
parents' role in setting the dietary tone and
groundniles, although this is not to say that
they did not have a range of negotiation or
subterfuge strategies in order to get their own
way. Many of the children seemed to appreci-
ate w^here there was scope for negotiation and
where this wôuld be futile. This resonates with
the Persuasion Know^ledge Model (Friestad and
Wright, 1994), as it shows children reflecting
on their influence tactics and developing a
more nuanced understanding of situational
factors influencing their effectiveness. Indeed,
situational factors wêre key to parental
decisions in this area: the children indicated
that the limits on their snack food choices
varied according to context, with fewer limits
imposed on supermarket or self-purchased
snacks. This raises questions about the validity
of several pester power studies, since many
have focused on just one setting - such as the
supermarket - or not specified a context for
their questions about children's influence.
In highlighting the importance of these
parents in regulating their children's intake of
HFSS products, we do not seek to claim that
advertising - or indeed promotion more
generally - of HFSS foods is irrelevant. Speak-
ing at the 2006 Parliament Health Select
Committee Inquiry into Obesity, Don Mathie-
son, New^ Zealand's Deputy Director of Public
Health, noted that
'Obesity is a profound problem for the
country and one that will have significant
impacts... cultural and lifestyle changes
over thepast two decades have contributed
to the state of New Zealanders' health and
it will take the same amount of time to
reverse the damage' (FOE, 2006)
Although this Committee has heard sub-
missions related to advertising and may include
a pronouncement on this when it reports
mid-2007, self-regulation remains the order of
the day in New Zealand. The Minister for
Health formally endorsed the Food Industry
Accord in 2004, w^hich, according to Hoek and
Maubach (2006: p. 166), 'commits industry
signatories to work to address obesity while
allowing them to protect all the marketing
freedoms that contribute to obesity'. Indeed,
drawing on the work of Michaels and Mon-
forton in the context of tobacco advertising,
these authors argue that food marketers are
engaged in the 'manufacture of uncertainty',
disputing the influence of marketing activities
and calling for more research prior to further
policy interventions.
If stringent restrictions on the promotion of
HFSS foods in New Zealand are not likely, this
raises the question of what other measures,
including social marketing campaigns, may
play a role in countering childhood obesity.
The Ministry of Health's contribution to this
goal is the development of Healthy Eating -
Healthy Action, a 'strategic approach to
improving nutrition, increasing physical
activity and achieving healthy weight for all
New Zealanders' (Ministry of Health, 2005).
This incorporates initiatives such as Fruit in
Schools, whereby primary school children
from lowêr socioeconomic communities
receive a free piece of fruit each day, and
the Nutrition Fund, which supports schools'
attempts to become healthy eating environ-
ments. Similar schemes are evident in other
coimtries, ranging from the Hungry for Success
initiative in Scottish schools' to celebrity chef
Jamie Oliver's television series and campaign
for healthier school dinners, w^hich led to new
government standards being set, supported by
increased funding.'^ Towards the end of 2006,
the New Zealand Government negotiated a
voluntary agreement wîth leading soft drink
distributors to withdraw full-sugar drinks from
schools by 2009, and launched a social
'http://www.healthpromotingschools.co.iik/
familyanclcommunity/eatingforhealth/index
••See http://www.channel4.coiTi/life/microsites/J/
jamies_school_dinners/
Copyright © 2007 Jolin Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-August 2007
DOI: 10,1002/cb

marketing campaign featuring Mervyn, an
animated character, to encourage school
children to take part in more physical activity
(Ministry of Health, 2007).
The importance of food labeling is evident
from Hughner and Maher's (2006) finding that
American parents' knowledge of food
appeared to have been learned from packaging
and advertising, and suffered accordingly. This
indicates the limitations of a narrov/ focus on
advertising and pester pow^er, since it seems
that parents must also be vigilant with respect
to the nutritional information provided to
them. In New Zealand, the Heart Foundation
operates a 'Pick the Tick' scheme, whereby
foods meeting guidelines for healthy ingredi-
ents are endorsed vv^ith a Heart Foundation
tick. Although this scheme is credited with
reducing fat, salt and sugar from New
Zealanders' diets, critics claim that ticks are
awarded to foods which may be healthier than
competitors but still contain unhealthy levels
of fat, salt and sugar (Woulfe, 2006). There has
been some discussion in New Zealand of
adopting the recently launched British 'traffic
light' labeling scheme, whereby red signals a
product that is high in fat, saturates, sugar or
salt, while amber indicates moderate and green
indicates low levels. While some retailers have
adopted this system, others have joined with
food marketers in creating a competing
'Guideline Daily Amount' (GDA) scheme,
which shows the percentage of recommended
daily amounts of fat, salt, sugar and calories in a
serving. While both have their merits, the
launch of two competing systems is hardly
ideal, and the GDA scheme has been accused
of misleading consumers, for example by using
adult GDAs on products which are inappropri-
ate for children (BBC, 2007).
While the merits of nutritional information
provided to parents may be debated, Curtis and
Fisher (2007: p. 18) observe that '[p]olicy
tends to position parents as "rational" agents,
enhancing their parenting skills by seeking
"expert" guidance'. However, feeding chil-
dren is also an emotional matter; parents may
for example feel torn between providing a
healthy diet and giving them what they think
they want, in a culture where food treats are
used regularly as rewards for good behavior.
Furthermore, some government initiatives
providing 'healthful' advice nin the risk of
treating children as unprotected and passive
recipients of advice, and parents as little more
than another communication channel for
health professionals (Cheal, 2002; Christensen,
2000).
Various initiatives seek to engage children as
active agents in their ow^n nutritional edu-
cation. In Britain, for example, the Focus on
Food campaign has created three Cooking
Buses which travel around schools, offering
children and teachers interactive cookery
lessons that include messages about food
hygiene and nutrition (Contini, 2005), The
Food Commission Research Charity has estab-
lished an interactive website for 11-14 year
olds, www^.chewonthis.org.uk, which pro-
vides 'honest information about the food you
eat' as well as a critical perspective on food
marketing practices. For younger children, the
high-energy children's television programme
Lazy Town, now shown in over 100 countries,
features Sporticus, a 'slightly above-average
hero' who encourages children to play outside,
be active and eat 'sports candy' (otherwise
known as fruit and vegetables).
Of course, several of these initiatives have
been around for some time, and obesity rates
are still increasing, so much remains to be
done. We suggest that if future policy is to be
effective, it not only needs to be implemented
in a holistic rather than piecemeal way, but
also needs to be informed by know^ledge and
understanding of family practices, nego-
tiations, experiences, and concerns related
to nutrition. We suggest that consumer
research has a valuable role to play in this
context so that initiatives engage parents and
children respectfully and appropriately. There
is considerable scope for richer, deeper studies
considering, for example, the respective roles
of mothers and fathers in this area, children's
interactions with siblings, and patterns of
snacking and food provision across households
which differ in family structure, health and
socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and parental
Copyright ® 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-August 2007
DOI: 10.1002/cb

employment status; parents engaged in full-
time or part-time work, fiexitime or shiftwork
may well have different needs and concerns.
The Persuasion Know^ledge Model (Friestad
and Wright, 1994) also indicates the potential
for more nuanced and detailed research on the
patterns of negotiation underpinning food
choice and consumption within families. The
stakes are too high for such research not to be
undertaken.
Acknowledgements
Thefieldwôrkreported here wâs undertaken
during the first author's sabbatical visit to The
University of Otago, supported by a grant from
The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scot-
land. The authors are grateful to Sarah Todd for
providing links into the schools, and to Rob
Aitken for helping with the groups. We are also
grateful to Andrea Prothero and the reviewers
for constructive and insightful comments on
an earlier draft of the paper.
Biographical notes
David Marshall is Professor of Marketing and
Consumer Behaviour at The University of Edin-
burgh and Head of the Marketing Group in the
School of Management and Economics. His
research interests and activities include
research on children's consumption, food
choice behaviour and food access, consump-
tion of music. He edited Food Choice and the
Consumer (1995 and has published in a num-
ber of academic journals including Consump-
tion, Markets and Culture, Journal of
Macromarketing, Journal ofMarketing Man-
agement, International Journal of Advertis-
ing and Marketing to Children (Young
Consumers), Appetite and Journal of Food
Quality and Preference.
Dr Stephanie O'Donohoe is a Reader in
Marketing at The University of Edinburgh.
Her PhD, undertaken at Edinburgh, focused
on young adults' experiences of advertising,
and much of her subsequent research has
explored advertising consumption. More
recently her work has focused on bereaved
consumers' interactions wîth the marketplace
and consumption experiences during the tran-
sition to motherhood. Her work has been
published in journals including Human
Relations, European Journal of Marketing,
Journal ofMarketing Management and Inter-
national Journal of Advertising.
Professor Stephen Kline is currently a Pro-
fessor in the School of Communication at
Simon Fraser University, and the Director of
the Media Analysis Laboratory. His research
projects encompass the study of community
media education, pharmaceutical advertising,
video game policy debates and studies of
domestic consumption practices, children's
marketing and sedentary lifestyles. Over the
last five years he has co-authored Digital Play
(2003), Researching Audiences (2003) and
Social Communication in Advertising II
(2005) in addition articles concerning chil-
dren's media and video games, family dynamics
surrounding sedentary lifestyles and fast food
culture, advertising and the consumer culture,
children's consumer competence and media
literacy and methods of audience research.
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