Kid’s tell all: Designing healthy eating campaigns

This study explored children's perceptions of social marketing messages aimed at encouraging healthy eating practices. A focus group was conducted with children six to 10 years of age. Employing a 'for youth, by youth' approach, focus group participants were asked to create new messages, and evaluate existing state and national social marking campaigns. Findings of this research provide initial evidence that children prefer messages that are colourful and provide explicit examples of healthy food alternatives. Further, findings indicate the children process social marketing messages literally, and seek messages that reflect their individual preferences. It is suggested that messages that depict inter-changing healthy food alternatives may be suitable when targeting children's health eating behaviour. Results of this research would be of interest to social marketers seeking to communicate with children.