Abstract
There is a need to monitor the growing prevalence of childhood weight issues and obesity worldwide. Parents can establish a set of family rules regarding child behaviors, but parents’ favorable attitudes toward healthy nutrition are also necessary. Despite the importance of this issue, there has been very little research on the most efficient means of communication to improve parental intentions to give fruits and vegetables to their children. Social marketing plays a key role in formulating effective communication campaigns targeting parents. We focus on two elements of the communication process, the message endorser and the message framing, and run an experiment with a sample of parents. Results demonstrate that parental intention to provide fruits and vegetables to children will be higher when the related message is backed by an expert endorser (vs. a celebrity endorser), the message is positively framed (vs. negatively framed) and when the message is emotionally framed (vs. rationally framed). Moreover, there is an interaction effect between the influence of the expertise/celebrity characteristic of the endorser and the message framing on parental intention to provide fruits and vegetables, and the effect is higher when the rational message framing is endorsed by an expert.
Highlights
Adult and childhood obesity has become pandemic in recent decades in Western countries [1]
As family is the first, and one of the most important, socialization agents, with parents being responsible for buying food, cooking, and, in general, governing eating habits at home, the behavioral eating norms prevailing at home do play an essential role in childhood obesity
Despite the relevance of the childhood obesity problem, literature has not considered how communication activities with strong foundations on consumer behavior can contribute to changes toward healthier behaviors that can reduce childhood obesity
Summary
Adult and childhood obesity has become pandemic in recent decades in Western countries [1]. Parents have a significant influence on their children’s diet [6], and a simple and cost-effective social marketing intervention (postcard administered to families with children aged 5 to 12 years) may favorably influence parents’ practices with regard to feeding [7]. Communication activities via social marketing can lead to changes in parents’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors that may serve to change children’s habits related to fruit and vegetable consumption at home. In this respect, as children are a focal concern for their parents, the message content is a key element in communication effectiveness [8]
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