Abstract
Food packaging is used for marketing purposes, providing consumers with information about product attributes at the point-of-sale and thus influencing food choice. The Australian government focuses on voluntary policies to address inappropriate food marketing, including the Health Star Rating nutrition label. This research explored the way marketing via packaging information influences Australian parents’ ability to select healthy foods for their children, and who parents believe should be responsible for helping them. Five 90-min focus groups were conducted by an experienced facilitator in Perth, Western Australia. Four fathers and 33 mothers of children aged 2–8 years participated. Group discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and inductive thematic content analysis conducted using NVivo11. Seven themes were derived: (1) pressure of meeting multiple demands; (2) desire to speed up shopping; (3) feeding them well versus keeping them happy; (4) lack of certainty in packaging information; (5) government is trusted and should take charge; (6) food manufacturers’ health messages are not trusted; (7) supermarkets should assist parents to select healthy foods. Food packaging information appears to be contributing to parents’ uncertainty regarding healthy food choices. Supermarkets could respond to parents’ trust in them by implementing structural policies, providing shopping environments that support and encourage healthy food choices.
Highlights
Powerful food companies have been identified as drivers of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases [1]
Themes relating to parents’ ability to navigate the marketing information present on packaging to select healthy foods: (1) pressure of meeting multiple demands; (2) desire to speed up shopping; (3) feeding them well versus keeping them happy; (4) lack of certainty in packaging information
Themes relating to who participants thought should be responsible for assisting parents to select healthy foods: (5) government is trusted and should take charge; (6) food manufacturers’ health messages are not trusted; (7) supermarkets should assist parents to select healthy foods
Summary
Powerful food companies have been identified as drivers of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases [1]. Poor diet is one of the most important risk factors for early deaths globally [2]. In Australia, supermarkets act as primary gatekeepers of the food system [3], and there is a high level of foreign ownership of food brands by large global manufacturers [4]. Supermarkets sell healthy food, in Australia, less than half of commonly available supermarket packaged foods were classified as healthy using the Food Standards Australia New Zealand nutrient profiling scoring criterion [8].
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