14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH) were recently able to determine why is it that parents continue to feed their children fast food, even when they know about the adverse side-effects of doing so.
The main question the team wanted to answer was whether parents are indeed losing the battle for their kids' health and, if so, why. Investigators primarily focused on the impact that media advertisements oriented on children had on this behavior.
For one thing, children are extremely easy to influence, as evidenced by the repeated demands that the young ones make when it comes to purchasing low-nutrition foods and beverages. The only reason why they ask for them is because these products are associate with recognizable characters and logos.
Experts called the kids' unrelenting demand for such products the “Nag Factor.” The study took place between October 2006 and July 2007, when experts spokes with 64 mothers, who had children aged 3 to 5. All participants had to fill out a questionnaire.
Experts asked for details on the overall household environment, on the mothers, on demographic parameters, media use, eating and shopping patterns, as well as demands linked to the Nag Factor.
“As researchers continue to investigate factors influencing the childhood obesity epidemic, attention often turns towards the marketing and consumption of junk food,” explains researcher Dina Borzekowski, EdD, EdM, MA.
She holds an appointment as an associate professor with the BSPH Department of Health, Behavior and Society, and is the senior author of the new study. The paper appears in the August issue of the Journal of Children and Media, PsychCentral reports.
“Clearly, children are not the primary shoppers in the households, so how do child-oriented, low-nutrition foods and beverages enter the homes and diets of young children?” the researchers ask.
“Our study indicates that while overall media use was not associated with nagging, one’s familiarity with commercial television characters was significantly associated with overall and specific types of nagging,” the team explains.
According to the data the mothers supplied, the three main aspects that make children nag are the type of packaging products have, the characters that represent them, as well as the commercials the young ones are exposed to on a daily basis.
Some of the coping strategies mothers use include giving in, yelling, ignoring, distracting, staying calm and consistent, avoiding the commercial environment, negotiating and setting rules, allowing alternative items, explaining the reasoning behind choices and limiting commercial exposure.
“When it comes to the most commonly cited strategies for dealing with nagging, 36 percent of mothers suggested limiting commercial exposure and 35 percent of mothers suggested simply explaining to children the reasons behind making or not making certain purchases,” says Holly Henry, MHS.
She holds an appointment as a PhD student at the BSPH Department of Health, Behavior and Society, and was the lead author of the new journal paper.