Factors that influence parental food purchases for children: Implications for dietary health

Parents play an important role in developing children’s dietary habits; the foods made available, bought, and role-modelled are those that become familiar and acceptable to children. This research seeks to further our understanding of the role parents play in children’s dietary habits by examining parental attitudes and purchase behaviours of certain types of children’s food products. Using a survey, three topic areas were investigated: parental attitudes and behaviours toward children’s convenience and entertainment-oriented food products, attributes deemed important in children’s food, and the level of parental monitoring of children’s diets. Post hoc interviews were conducted to further investigate reported attitude-behaviour inconsistencies. Combined, the findings lead to important implications regarding consumer education, food manufacturing, labelling, and retail practices.