14. Families, food, and pester power 177
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