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Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique logoLink to Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique
. 2012 Nov 1;103(6):e453–e458. doi: 10.1007/BF03405637

Healthy Choice?: Exploring How Children Evaluate the Healthfulness of Packaged Foods

Charlene Elliott 1,✉, Meaghan Brierley 1
PMCID: PMC6975194  PMID: 23618027

Abstract

Objectives: Today’s supermarket contains hundreds of packaged foods specifically targeted at children. Yet research has shown that children are confused by the various visual messages found on packaged food products. This study explores children’s nutrition knowledge with regard to packaged food products, to uncover strengths and difficulties they have in evaluating the healthfulness of these foods.

Methods: Focus groups were conducted with children (grades 1–6). Particular attention was paid to the ways children made use of what they know about nutrition when faced with the visual elements and appeals presented on food packaging.

Results: Children relied heavily on packages’ written and visual aspects - including colour, images, spokes-characters, front-of-package claims - to assess the healthfulness of a food product. These elements interfere with children’s ability to make healthy choices when it comes to packaged foods.

Conclusions: Choosing healthy packaged foods is challenging for children due to competing sets of knowledge: one pertains to their understanding of visual, associational cues; the other, to translating their understanding of nutrition to packaged foods. Canada’s Food Guide, along with the curriculum taught to Canadian children at schools, does not appear to provide children with the tools necessary to navigate a food environment dominated by packaged foods.

Key words: Child; nutrition; food labeling; food preferences; nutrition labeling; product labeling, food

Footnotes

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [funding reference number 86633] and the CIHR Canada Research Chairs program.

Conflict of Interest: None to declare.

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Articles from Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique are provided here courtesy of Springer

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