Caregivers’ provision of sweetened fruit-flavoured drinks to young children: importance of perceived product attributes and differences by socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics

Abstract

Objective: Drinks containing added sugar and/or non-nutritive sweeteners are not recommended for children under 6 years. Yet, most young children consume these products. The current study examined factors associated with caregivers’ provision of sweetened drinks to their young child. Design: Caregivers reported frequency of providing sweetened fruit-flavoured drinks (fruit drinks and flavoured water) and unsweetened juices (100 % juice and juice/water blends) to their 1- to 5-year-old child in the past month and perceived importance of product attributes (healthfulness, product claims and other characteristics), other drinks provided, reading the nutrition facts panel and socio-demographic characteristics. A partial proportional odds model measured the relationship between these factors and frequency of providing sweetened fruit-flavoured drinks. Setting: Online cross-sectional survey. Participants: U.S. caregivers (n 1763) with a young child (ages 1–5). Results: The majority (74 %) of caregivers provided sweetened fruit-flavoured drinks to their child in the past month; 26 % provided them daily. Provision frequency was positively associated with some drink attributes, including perceived healthfulness, vitamin C claims and box/pouch packaging; child requests and serving other sweetened drinks and juice/water blends. Provision frequency was negatively associated with perceived importance of ‘no/less sugar’ and ‘all natural’ claims. Reading nutrition facts panels, serving water to their child and child’s age were not significant. Conclusion: Misunderstanding of product healthfulness and other marketing attributes contribute to frequent provision of sweetened drinks to young children. Public health efforts to address common misperceptions, including counter marketing, may raise awareness among caregivers about the harms of providing sweetened drinks to young children.

Effects of a front-of-package disclosure on accuracy in assessing children’s drink ingredients: two randomised controlled experiments with US caregivers of young children

“…The disclosure also reduced perceived healthfulness and purchase intentions for sweetened drinks regardless of the presence of claims on product packages. As perceived healthfulness is strongly associated with parents’ purchases of sweetened drinks for their children (12,19) , this finding indicates that disclosures could be an effective tool to reduce purchases of sweetened children’s drinks in addition to increasing understanding of drink ingredients. However, further research is needed to test this hypothesis.…”

“…Behavioural intentions (i.e. purchase intent) have been shown to predict dietary behaviours (35) , and previous research shows that perceived healthfulness is associated with parents serving sweetened children's drinks (12,19) , but future research is needed to determine the effects of the FOP disclosure on actual purchasing behaviour.…”

“…Parents purchase sweetened fruit-flavoured children's drinks for many reasons, including marketing appeals, convenience, price, child requests, misperceptions about healthfulness and confusion with 100 % juice (12)(13)(14)(15) . Research shows that common product packaging features contribute to this confusion (15,16) .…”

“…nutrition facts panel) (23) ; therefore, confusion about children's drink ingredients may be greater among less-educated caregivers. Increasing parents' knowledge of NNS, added sugar and juice content in children's drinks may reduce misperceptions about the healthfulness of sweetened drinks (13,24) , which is associated with frequency of serving these drinks to their children (12,19) . Therefore, efforts to increase caregivers' understanding of ingredients in the drinks they serve their children may help reduce sugary drink consumption among young children.…”

“…stevia, cane sugar) (13) . Parents report that these package features lead them to believe that sweetened fruit-flavoured drinks are healthy choices for their children (15) and may not consider them to be 'sugary drinks' that are not recommended for children (12,13,19,20) .…”