Hannah Fairbrother

Children’s understanding of family financial resources and their impact on eating healthily

Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood are linked to childhood and adult health inequalities. They are particularly closely associated with inequalities in nutritional and consequently health status. Recent research links this to the high cost of nutrient-rich and low cost of nutrient-poor foods and explores how parents negotiate food purchase on a limited budget. However, we know little of childrens perspectives on the material and social realities of their lives and their involvement in health-relevant behaviour. This contrasts with a growing body of research which emphasises childrens active role in making sense of and participating in health practices while growing up and their potential to act in continuity with and as agents of change in family health cultures. This paper explores childrens understanding of family finances and how they perceive this to relate to eating healthily. It draws upon data from a qualitative study of 53 children aged 9-10 from two socioeconomically contrasting schools in the North of England during 2010 and 2011. Data were generated in friendship group interviews and debates at school and individual interviews in the home, and analysed thematically. Children incorporated a variety of media information into their understandings and sought explanations from their personal experience. They had sophisticated ideas about the interrelationships between diet, cost and health and were acutely aware of how family finances influenced food purchase. Children proposed different strategies to facilitate eating healthily on a budget, but prioritised state and corporate responsibility in ensuring that eating healthily is affordable. This contrasts with current health-related policy, which does not address cost as a potential barrier to eating healthily in the home. Children also consistently conflated healthy eating with eating fruit and vegetables, highlighting a need to reinforce other important nutritional messages.Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood are linked to childhood and adult health inequalities. They are particularly closely associated with inequalities in nutritional and consequently health status. Recent research links this to the high cost of nutrient-rich and low cost of nutrient-poor foods and explores how parents negotiate food purchase on a limited budget. However, we know little of children’s perspectives on the material and social realities of their lives and their involvement in health-relevant behaviour. This contrasts with a growing body of research which emphasises children’s active role in making sense of and participating in health practices while growing up and their potential to act in continuity with and as agents of change in family health cultures. This paper explores children’s understanding of family finances and how they perceive this to relate to eating healthily. It draws upon data from a qualitative study of 53 children aged 9–10 from two socioeconomically contrasting schools in the North of England during 2010 and 2011. Data were generated in friendship group interviews and debates at school and individual interviews in the home, and analysed thematically. Children incorporated a variety of media information into their understandings and sought explanations from their personal experience. They had sophisticated ideas about the interrelationships between diet, cost and health and were acutely aware of how family finances influenced food purchase. Children proposed different strategies to facilitate eating healthily on a budget, but prioritised state and corporate responsibility in ensuring that eating healthily is affordable. This contrasts with current health-related policy, which does not address cost as a potential barrier to eating healthily in the home. Children also consistently conflated healthy eating with eating fruit and vegetables, highlighting a need to reinforce other important nutritional messages.

Migrant children within Europe: a systematic review of children’s perspectives on their health experiences

OBJECTIVES To review the extant literature to explore what is known about childrens own perspectives on their health experiences, focussing on children and young people who have migrated into, and within, Europe. STUDY DESIGN A systematic review with narrative synthesis. METHODS A review of English language articles was performed in June 2016 using the following databases: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane and Web of Science. Included articles had to report data generated directly with children, up to 18 years of age, who had migrated across national borders into, or within, Europe during their own lifetimes. Extraction from articles was undertaken by all authors, and quality assessment of included reviews was performed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. RESULTS The articles in the final data set included research based on four broad areas: alcohol, smoking and substance use; diet, eating disorders and overweight; emotional, psychological and mental health issues; and childrens views and experiences of health and health services. Most studies were cross-sectional analytic or incidence or prevalence studies. CONCLUSION There is a general lack of clarity in the literature regarding the reporting of childrens own migration status. Childrens voices are often subsumed within those of their adult parents or carers. There is a need to promote more child-focussed research which gives voice to migrant children to better understand the complex and multidimensional factors that contribute to their (ill)health.

Making health information meaningful: children's health literacy practices

Childrens health and wellbeing is high on the research and policy agenda of many nations. There is a wealth of epidemiological research linking childhood circumstances and health practices with adult health. However, echoing a broader picture within child health research where children have typically been viewed as objects rather than subjects of enquiry, we know very little of how, in their everyday lives, children make sense of health-relevant information. This paper reports key findings from a qualitative study exploring how children understand food in everyday life and their ideas about the relationship between food and health. 53 children aged 9-10, attending two socio-economically contrasting schools in Northern England, participated during 2010 and 2011. Data were generated in schools through interviews and debates in small friendship groups and in the home through individual interviews. Data were analysed thematically using cross-sectional, categorical indexing. Moving beyond a focus on what children know the paper mobilises the concept of health literacy (Nutbeam, 2000), explored very little in relation to children, to conceptualise how children actively construct meaning from health information through their own embodied experiences. It draws on insights from the Social Studies of Childhood (James and Prout, 2015), which emphasise childrens active participation in their everyday lives as well as New Literacy Studies (Pahl and Rowsell, 2012), which focus on literacy as a social practice. Recognising children as active health literacy practitioners has important implications for policy and practice geared towards improving child health.

Where are the schools? Children, families and food practices.

Reducing childhood obesity is an international priority and childrens diets, food knowledge and practices have come under intense scrutiny in both policy and popular discourse. Notwithstanding evidence that health interventions which resonate with childrens own views are the most effective, there is still relatively little research which mobilises childrens everyday perspectives on food to inform public health policy. We report key findings from a qualitative study with 53 children aged 9-10, attending two socio-economically contrasting schools in the UK. The study explored childrens understandings of food in everyday life and their ideas about the relationship between food and health. Throughout the study, despite recent attempts to position schools as key sites for public health interventions, children consistently emphasised families as the locus for enduring food practices. The research highlights the value of listening to children and applying our understanding of their perspectives to ensure that public health initiatives work with the important influences on their diet and health that they themselves identify.

Health experiences of children and young people who migrate – Opportunities for health education:

Research on migration and health is gaining significant ground, with a focus on the adverse physical and mental health outcomes experienced by migrants. The health-related experiences of children and young people who migrate, however, are relatively absent, with children’s migration and health status often conflated with that of their parents. The omission of children’s own perspectives limits knowledge about how health is understood and experienced by child migrants, including the identification of best ways to support their health. Drawing on the empirical literature on child migrants and health from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Western Pacific Region, we adopt a critical perspective to examine how the research to date supports a particular way of understanding and investigating the health of children and young people who migrate. Specifically, we highlight how a dominant focus on parents’ migration status, (negative) health outcomes and patterns of risk behaviours limits, rather than aids, the understanding of migrant children’s health. In doing so, we illustrate how much of the evidence base upholds Westernised biomedical notions of health and privileges the use of particular methodologies to assess health outcomes and reduce health risks. These preferences, in turn, shape the subsequent range of ‘appropriate’ forms of health education for, rather than with, children. We conclude by drawing on some exceptions and consider the opportunities these provide for developing health education in line with children’s own understandings of health – crucially underscoring the importance migrant children and young people attach to the more social aspects of their health and migration experiences.

The well-being of children in the UK, fourth edition

The wealth of literature regarding children’s well-being and the introduction of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) index of children’s well-being (to be updated annually) demonstrate the dep...