The Effects of Food Marketing on Children's Preferences: Testing the Moderating Roles of Age and Gender

Ariel Chernin
Additional contact information
Ariel Chernin: The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2008, vol. 615, issue 1, 101-118

Abstract: A large body of research suggests that food marketing affects children's food preferences, short- and long-term dietary consumption, and purchase requests directed to parents. It is frequently argued that younger children are more susceptible to marketers' messages than older children because they do not understand the persuasive nature of advertising; however, little direct evidence supports this claim. Employing an experimental design, this study examined the influence of food marketing on children's preferences and tested whether age (and gender) moderated the effects of ad exposure. The sample consisted of 133 children between the ages of five and eleven. Results indicated that exposure to food commercials increased children's preferences for the advertised products. Age did not moderate this effect; younger and older children were equally persuaded by the commercials. Boys were more influenced by the commercials than girls. Implications for the study of food marketing to children are discussed.

Keywords: food marketing; advertising; children; persuasion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716207308952 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:615:y:2008:i:1:p:101-118

DOI: 10.1177/0002716207308952

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().