Method of assessing parent-child grocery store purchasing interactions using a micro-camcorder

Strategies elementary school children use to influence mothers' food purchasing decisions

This study aimed to understand the strategies elementary-school-aged children used to influence mothers' food purchasing decisions. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 40 children aged 6-11 years and their mothers living in South Carolina. Strategies to influence mothers' food purchases were collected from children and their mothers separately. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and open-coded. The constant comparative method was used for data analysis. Coding matrices were used to compare children's and mothers' responses on the children's strategies. Children reported 157 instances of 25 distinct strategies to influence mothers' purchasing decisions. Mothers had concordance with 83 instances of these strategies. Mothers were more concordant with sons than daughters. The most common and successful strategies reported by children and mothers were repeated polite requests, reasoned requests and referencing friends. Other strategies included offers to contribute money or service, using other family members to pursue mothers for the item, writing a list and grabbing desired items. Mothers perceived that children had a large influence on food purchasing decisions. Children were aware of the strategies that would get positive reactions from mothers. They (children) could get their desired items a lot of times, often, or several times in a month from their mothers irrespective of the healthfulness of the items. Children's influence can be used as a change agent for improving mothers' food purchases if children prefer healthy foods. Efforts are needed for mothers and children to help address children's strategies to influence mothers to purchase unhealthy foods and make healthy foods more appealing to children.

Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study of Factors Associated with the Healthfulness of Parental Responses to Child Food Purchasing Requests

Objective The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between various factors (e.g., sociodemographic, child, and parental factors) and the healthfulness of parental responses to child in-store food purchasing requests. Additionally, a secondary objective is to describe "resist strategies" used by parents to respond to child food-purchasing requests and their efficacy in avoiding conflict. Methods Parent-child dyads (children aged 2-6 years) completed an audio-/visual-recoded food shopping trip at their usual grocery store and time. Recordings of trips were coded for behavioral and environmental factors. Parental healthful response rate (i.e., percent of responses that were healthful) was the primary outcome variable. A healthful response occurred when a parent yielded to a healthful child request, or resisted a non-healthful request. Parents also completed a questionnaire. Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to assess the relationship between the main outcome variable and sociodemographic, child, and parent factors. Results Parents (n = 39) responded healthfully to 62.9 % (±26.7 %) of child food purchasing requests. Low- and middle-income parents, and black and white parents, had significantly higher healthful response rates compared to high-income parents (p = 0.03) and Hispanic/Indian-descent parents (p = 0.02), respectively. Using the "ignore" strategy proved an effective resist strategy in this study, leading to no parent-child conflicts. Conclusions Programming that seeks to improve the healthfulness of food purchasing in families with young children should address unhealthful response behaviors in Hispanic/Indian-descent parents and high-income parents; although, the needs of these groups are different. Further research is needed to confirm and expand on these findings.