Young children’s food brand knowledge. Early development and associations with television viewing and parent’s diet

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi; Hennessy, Eilis; Dean, Moira and Hollywood, Lynsey (2014). Young children’s food brand knowledge. Early development and associations with television viewing and parent’s diet. Appetite, 80 pp. 197–203.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.05.015

Abstract

Brand knowledge is a prerequisite of children’s requests and choices for branded foods. We explored the development of young children’s brand knowledge of foods highly advertised on television – both healthy and less healthy. Participants were 172 children aged 3–5 years in diverse socio-economic settings, from two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland with different regulatory environments. Results indicated that food brand knowledge (i) did not differ across jurisdictions; (ii) increased significantly between 3 and 4 years; and (iii) children had significantly greater knowledge of unhealthy food brands, compared with similarly advertised healthy brands. In addition, (iv) children’s healthy food brand knowledge was not related to their television viewing, their mother’s education, or parent or child eating. However, (v) unhealthy brand knowledge was significantly related to all these factors, although only parent eating and children’s age were independent predictors. Findings indicate that effects of food marketing for un- healthy foods take place through routes other than television advertising alone, and are present before pre-schoolers develop the concept of healthy eating. Implications are that marketing restrictions of un- healthy foods should extend beyond television advertising; and that family-focused obesity prevention programmes should begin before children are 3 years of age.

Viewing alternatives

Metrics

Item Actions

Export

You can export this page using these formats Digital Object Identifier - DOI

About

• Item ORO ID
• 55648
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• ISSN
• 0195-6663
• Project Funding Details

• Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
  Food Marketing and the Preschool Child	Fund No. [09-2010]	SAFEFOOD Safefood: the Food Safety Authority for Ireland and Northern Ireland

• Keywords
• pre-school; food; brands; parents; television advertising
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport > Childhood, Youth and Sport > Childhood and Youth
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport > Childhood, Youth and Sport
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS)
• Research Group
• Childhood and Youth
  Centre for Children’s Wellbeing
• Copyright Holders
• © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
• Depositing User
• Mimi Tatlow-Golden