NEW YORK—Parents want their children to eat healthy foods and have specific expectations about the benefits their children will receive—from heart and brain health to disease prevention and immunity, according to a global study conducted by Ipsos Marketing, Consumer Goods.
Parents from around the world were given a list of benefits their children may receive from eating healthy foods and asked to rank which benefits were most important. Heart health ranked highest in importance, followed by reduced risk of disease later in life, better brain development and better immunity. Heart health was most important to parents in Spain, Turkey, Belgium, Russia, and Great Britain, while reduced risk of disease was most important to parents in France, Italy, Sweden and Germany.
Increasingly, parents are finding more support from their local governments as new regulations may force sweeping changes about how packaged foods are marketed to children.
“Manufacturers are feeling the pressure from all angles to market healthier food to children," said Lauren Demar, Global CEO, Ipsos Marketing, Consumer Goods & Shopper. “Parents are demanding nutritious and functional foods to serve their children, while new regulations are restricting marketing efforts for less healthy food options. At the same time, manufacturers need to appeal to children by offering great-tasting food with ‘kid appeal’, as children still influence food purchases in many countries."
Demar noted food manufacturers are stepping up to the challenge and providing healthy options for kids in a wide range of categories, including beverages (juice boxes fortified with calcium), dairy (milk with DHA omega-3), cereal (gluten-free options) and snacks (fruit chews containing vitamin C).
These findings are based on an online survey of citizens around the world. Interviews were carried out between Feb. 2, 2011 and June 13, 2011. For this survey an international sample of 18,680 adults aged 16-64 were interviewed in a total of 24 countries. The countries included AArgentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.
