Choice, Motives, and Mixed Messages: A Qualitative Photo-Based Inquiry of Parents’ Perceptions of Food and Beverage Marketing to Children in Sport and Recreation Facilities

Rachel Prowse, Kate Storey, Dana Lee Olstad, Valerie Carson and Kim D. Raine
Additional contact information
Rachel Prowse: Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL A1B 3V6, Canada
Kate Storey: School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1C9, Canada
Dana Lee Olstad: Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 4N1, Canada
Valerie Carson: Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H9, Canada
Kim D. Raine: School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1C9, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: Unhealthy food and beverage availability and sponsorship undermine healthy food practices in sport and recreation. We conducted a focused ethnography with reflexive photo-interviewing to examine parents’ awareness, reactions, and experiences of food and beverage marketing in and around their children’s physical activity in public sport and recreation facilities. Eleven parents took photos of what they thought their facility was ‘saying about food and eating’. Photos guided semi-structured interviews on the ‘4Ps’ of marketing (product, pricing, placement, promotion). Thematic analysis was conducted by holistic coding followed by in vivo, versus, and value coding. Photo-taking increased parents’ awareness of food marketing in facilities. Reactions to food and beverage marketing were positive or negative depending on parents’ perspectives of healthy food availability (choice), marketers’ motives, and mixed messages within the facility. Parents experienced their children requesting ‘junk’ food at the facility leading to parents actively attempting to reduce the frequency of these requests. Healthy eating promotion in sport and recreation facilities was misaligned with the foods and beverages available which contributed to parents’ distrust of social marketing initiatives. Critically evaluating the alignment of commercial and social marketing in recreation and sport may help inform effective healthy eating interventions that are accepted and supported by parents.

Keywords: food marketing; food environments; children; sport sponsorship; sport and recreation; public health; healthy promotion; healthy eating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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