A qualitative study of children’s snack food packaging perceptions and preferences

Abstract

BackgroundFood marketing is pervasive in high- and low/middle-income countries and is recognized as a significant risk factor for childhood obesity. Although food packaging is one of the most important marketing tools to persuade consumers at the point-of-sale, scant research has examined how it influences children’s perceptions. This study was conducted in Guatemala and aimed to understand which snack foods are the most frequently purchased by children and how aspects of food packaging influence their product perceptions.MethodsSix activity-based focus groups were conducted in two elementary public schools with thirty-seven children (Grades 1 through 6, age range 7–12 years old). During each focus group, children participated in three activities: 1) list their most frequently purchased food products; 2) select the picture of their favorite product, the packaging they liked best, and the product they thought was the healthiest from eight choices; and 3) draw the package of a new snack.ResultsChildren reported purchasing salty snacks most frequently. Most children chose their favorite product based on taste perceptions, which can be influenced by food packaging. Visual elements influenced children’s selection of favorite packaging (i.e., characters, colors) and healthiest product (i.e., images), and persuaded some children to incorrectly think certain foods contained healthy ingredients. When children generated their own drawings of a new product, the most frequently included packaging elements in the drawings were product name, price, product image and characters, suggesting those aspects of the food packaging were most significant to them.ConclusionsPolicies regulating package content and design are required to discourage consumption of unhealthy snacks. This might be another public health strategy that can aid to halt the obesity epidemic.

Exploring mechanisms of food insecurity in indigenous agricultural communities in Guatemala: a mixed methods study

“…This price parity resulted in a situation whereby processed foods remain highly available and affordable, even while fresher, more nutritious foods were more expensive or unavailable. These findings are consistent with other literature showing the rapid incursion of processed foods marketing in urban, non-indigenous Guatemalan populations [17,18]. They are also consistent with the global scholarly literature, which has repeatedly demonstrated that the commoditization of diets decreases dietary diversity in both rural and urban settings [35,36].…”

“…Similarly, the implementation of small-plot household gardens could improve dietary diversity and serve as bridge to more large-scale transitions in cropping practices [32,33]. Finally, exploration of strategies to improve the availability of fresh foods in local corner stores with packaging and pricing that makes them competitive to processed foods is essential to improving dietary quality [17,18].…”

“…In our own recent work, we have shown how these effects extend even to communities with high rates of local land ownership and food production [16]. At the same time, this endemic food insecurity coexists with a rapid increase in the country-wide availability and market penetration of highly-processed or pre-packaged snack foods [17,18]. In a recent study we conducted in an indigenous Maya farming village, Xejuyu' , 1 less than 3 % of children under five years of age met World Health Organization standards for dietary diversity and meal frequency [15,16], subjective perceptions of food insecurity were common, and the majority of households regularly consumed processed and pre-packaged snack foods.…”

Scoping review of studies on food marketing in Latin America: Summary of existing evidence and research gaps

“…Twenty-five studies inquired several topics related with television advertisement. Fourteen of them found that food and nonalcoholic beverage advertisements represented between 5.6% and 36.4% of all television ads 24,[27][28][29]34,36,37,40,43,49,52,53,56,59 .…”

Analysis of the presence of nutrient claims on labels of ultra-processed foods directed at children and of the perception of kids on such claims

“…Studies conducted in the United States of America found that children preferred and identified as healthier and/or tastier foods that contained nutrient claims or cartoon characters on their labels 9,10 . In Canada and Guatemala studies found that children strongly relied on the visual aspects of the packages to consider foods healthier 11 and make their food choices 12 .…”