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Tatlow-Golden, Mimi
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Tatlow-Golden, Mimi
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Tatlow-Golden, Mimi
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'Big, strong and healthy': Young children's identification of food and drink that contribute to healthy growth
2013-12-01, Tatlow-Golden, Mimi, Hennessy, Eilis, Dean, Moira, Hollywood, Lynsey
Growing awareness of
the importance of healthy diet in early childhood makes it important to chart
the development of children's understanding of food and drink. This study aimed to document young
children's evaluation of food and drink as healthy, and to explore
relationships with socioeconomic status, family eating habits, and children's
television viewing. Data were
gathered from children aged 3 to 5 years (n = 172) in
diverse socioeconomic settings in Ireland, and from their parents. Results
demonstrated that children had very high levels of ability to identify healthy
foods as important for growth and health, but considerably less ability to
reject unhealthy items, although knowledge of these increased significantly
between ages 3 and 5. Awareness of
which foods were healthy, and which foods were not, was not related to family
socioeconomic status, parent or child home eating habits, or children's
television viewing. Results highlighted the importance of examining young
children's response patterns, as many of the youngest showed a consistent 'yes
bias'; however, after excluding these responses, the significant findings
remained. Findings suggest it is important to teach children about less healthy
foods in the preschool years.
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Publication
Young children's food brand knowledge. Early development and associations with television viewing and parent's diet
2014-09-01, Tatlow-Golden, Mimi, Hennessy, Eilis, Dean, Moira, Hollywood, Lynsey
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 unhealthy 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 unhealthy foods should extend beyond television advertising; and that family-focused obesity prevention programmes should begin before children are 3 years of age.