Newswise: Marketing may influence how often parents feed their children fast food, according to a study by Sonya A. Grier, an associate professor of marketing at American University's Kogod School of Business. The study, "Fast-Food Marketing and Children's Fast-Food Consumption: Exploring Parents' Influences in an Ethnically Diverse Sample," is in the current issue of the American Marketing Association's Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.
Parents' reports of greater exposure to fast-food promotion were linked to beliefs that eating fast food is a regular practice in their communities. Reports of greater exposure to fast-food marketing were also linked to increased fast food intake among children. Additionally, the more parents perceived fast-food consumption as a socially normal behavior, the more frequently their children ate fast food.
