ATTITUDES TOWARDS FOOD PRODUCTS FOR CHILDREN: A PARENTAL VIEWPOINT

During the last decades sociological changes have modified the role of children within families: participatory models have become more widespread, to the detriment of more authoritative ones: this change has had consequences also in reference to families’purchases. In scientific literature some scholars show that this influence is real and marketers try to take advantage of this through a communication style which attempts to “teach” children how top ester their parents: this is so-called nag factor. This is a quantitative research. In order to understand which are the parental attitude towards kids food products, a questionnaire has been administered both in some schools (nursery and primary) to a random sample of parents, representative of a larger sample of kids (200 in all). Findings showed that pestering is a real attitude, in particular among the littlest children. Moreover these findings reflect in part the reality described by marketing literature: children influence the purchasing decisions of their parents, but this influence decreases when mothers and fathers are more aware of the importance of a quality based diet