Healthy Eating :Challenges

for familiesDr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan

Examples

1. Marketing , Children most vulnerable

2. Food Poverty and families @ disadvantage

3. Environment and ‘Personal Responsibility’ debate

Food Marketing- Innocent?

• Pervasive, Clever

• Influences purchases, preferences and consumption patterns

• Focus on high sugar, salt and fat products

• Strong impact on children

Marketing –children’s world

• Strong food brand knowledge: Children 3-5 yrs. matched logos to product

images for 63% brands (at 5 years, nearly 80% of all logos) Safefood 2012

• Knowledge of unhealthy food brands was higher among children who ate

less healthily; lived in disadvantaged communities; more home TV exposure;

mothers with less education. Safefood2012

• Early advertising priming, lifelong association (Connell 2014)

• Digital marketing aimed at early teens-engagement, emotions, entertainment.

Irish Heart Foundation 2015

Approach:

• Health literacy

• Marketing; Promotions and Sponsorship

• Calorie labelling

• Reformulation

Disadvantage and food poverty

• ~10% population• Consume less healthy food• Cost; availability; cooking facilities

and skills; less ‘tasty’• Health Burden- psychological/social,

obesity, DM2, CVD and cancers

Insights

• “Yeah well I’m not thinking long term, I’m just trying to get by, day by day”

• “Rent, heat and electric come first…”

• “Wouldn’t like the taste of vegetables or things…”

• “At least the freezer meals will be eaten, can’t afford waste…”

Key Findings Republic of Ireland

Weekly food costs (€) for a child

• Significant cost for all households with children, particularly those with an adolescent child.

• The cost of feeding a teenager was double the cost that of feeding a pre-schooler and €12–13/wk more expensive than for a primary school child.

Proportionate Universalism Marmot

Parental Responsibility vs ” Toxic Obesogenic Environments”

• Variable susceptibility to obesity

• Biology drives behaviour e.g. appetite

hormones; stress levels ; self-control

• Environment overrules restraint

Parents and children challenged:

No ‘quick fix’:

• Family -oriented

• Long term –sustained

• Societal movement

• Cross cutting: Government Departments and Food Industry

• Comprehensive

• Policy change and Community-based approaches