Jill K. Maher

Factors that Influence Parental Food Purchases for Children: Implications for Dietary Health

Parents play an important role in developing childrens dietary habits; the foods made available, bought, and role-modelled are those that become familiar and acceptable to children. This research seeks to further our understanding of the role parents play in childrens dietary habits by examining parental attitudes and purchase behaviours of certain types of childrens food products. Using a survey, three topic areas were investigated: parental attitudes and behaviours toward childrens convenience and entertainment-oriented food products, attributes deemed important in childrens food, and the level of parental monitoring of childrens diets. Post hoc interviews were conducted to further investigate reported attitude-behaviour inconsistencies. Combined, the findings lead to important implications regarding consumer education, food manufacturing, labelling, and retail practices.

Review of Food Policy and Consumer Issues of Mercury in Fish

Public health messages regarding seafood consumption are confounded by long standing dietary advice promoting the healthfulness of consuming fish and recent warnings concerning dangerous mercury levels in specified fish. The warnings vary by federal agency and are directed to vulnerable subpopulations, notably women of childbearing age, pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children. The issue of mercury in fish has received considerable media coverage, attention from consumer organizations and public policy review. The net result is an area of seemingly contradictory advice directed to consumers and health professionals on the type and quantity of fish safe to consume. This message that fish is nutritious and healthy is particularly understood by educated and affluent subpopulations who can afford a variety of fish in their diet. This review addresses the contradictory rhetoric and reviews the state and federal agency policy positions. It considers the arguments for and against disclosing mercury-related information and its anticipated impact on the extended health benefits of fish consumption versus the risk to vulnerable subpopulations. The issue of balancing and targeting healthy messages and dietary warnings on fish is important because within the U.S. childbearing population, it is conservatively estimated that 250,000 women may be exposing their fetuses to higher levels of methylmercury than is in federal public health guidelines; two million more may not be consuming enough low-mercury fish.

CHILDREN'S RECALL OF TELEVISION AD ELEMENTS: An Examination of Audiovisual Effects

This study examined childrens recall and recognition of ad content contained in the audio and video modalities of television commercials. An experiment was conducted with first and fourth graders who were exposed to a 60-second ad with a story-line format. The ad featured typical aspects of ads targeting youngsters, including animated creatures, role transformations, and loud music, among other production techniques. Results support the supremacy of the audiovisual nature of television in conveying information to children. Age differences between the two groups of children were evident. Suggestions for future research are offered.

If you have their minds, will their bodies follow? Factors effecting customer loyalty in a ski resort setting

In many business situations, the primary focus of marketing activities can be viewed as developing and maintaining repeat patronage or loyalty from the firm’s customer base. Due to many alternatives for consumers, vacation marketers are building loyalty by developing relationships with consumers. While organizations may conceptualize and even implement relationship marketing practices into their consumer loyalty strategies, it is necessary to examine the variables contributing to a more loyal consumer base. This paper explores the relationship between organizationally related factors and consumer attitudinal loyalty in the resort industry using data collected from a ski resort. All factors in the study have been linked to loyalty, but have not previously been examined in one study. Regression results indicate that trust, commitment, satisfaction, past behavior, and value predict 60 percent of the variance in attitudinal loyalty. Implications suggest resort marketers need to segment customers based on number of visits, creating strategies to manipulate factors that are most important to each segment.

Racial Stereotypes in Children's Television Commercials

ABSTRACT In our increasingly diverse society, children are deeply engaged in television viewing and their consumption of television programming varies by ethnicity. Ethnic portrayal in childrens advertising is an important public policy and self-regulatory topic that may influence childrens self-perception and brand perception. This research examines frequency of ethnic representation, as assessed by the proportionality criterion and type of role portrayals by ethnically stereotyped groups in 155 childrens commercials. Results indicate that all diverse ethnicities were underrepresented compared to Caucasians. Ethnic representation is also examined by advertised product category, ethnic interaction, and importance of role portrayed by ethnic characters.

Gender in food advertising to children: boys eat first

Examines advertisers’ use of gender in food advertising to children. Previous studies of gender preference in children’s advertising suggest gender bias exists. Food products are most often gender‐neutral. Advertising for food products is compared to non‐food advertisements. Examines measures of voice‐over gender, gender of dominant product user, gender of main character, activity level, aggressive behavior level, and soundtrack volume. A sample of food advertisements to children exhibits greater gender preference in presentation than the comparison sample of non‐food advertisements to children. This suggests that food advertising should consider gender bias among other factors when proceeding with self‐regulation of children’s advertising.

Managing Nonprofit Organizations: The Importance of Transformational Leadership and Commitment to Operating Standards for Nonprofit Accountability

Using survey methodology and telephone interviews, this exploratory study proposes a framework for nonprofit leaders to promote accountability in their organizations, an important goal for both management and performance in the nonprofit sector. The study relies on Brodys (2001) four-part construct of organizational accountability (fiscal responsibility, good governance, adherence to mission, and program effectiveness) to examine the issue of promoting accountability in nonprofit organizations. We hypothesize that higher levels of nonprofit accountability are related to higher levels of an organizations commitment to operating standards and to higher levels of transformational leadership as exhibited by the organizations leader. Study results indicate that both predictor variables are positively and significantly related to nonprofit accountability, with transformational leadership being the stronger indicator of accountability. The findings of the study have significant implications for nonprofit managers and for nonprofit organizational performance.

Food advertising on children's television

Purpose – This research investigates the changes in the types of advertised food products and the use of nutritional versus consumer appeals in children’s advertising from 2000 to 2005.Design/methodology/approach – Content Analysis.Findings – Results indicate that food processors and restaurants have not changed their advertising messages to children in response to the multitude of pressures the industry is facing. Specifically, this pre‐post longitudinal comparison shows no significant change regarding types of food products advertised and type of appeals used in the ads directed to children.Research limitations/implications – Limitations include the sample studied. While the ads recorded all came from television programming aimed specifically at children, there was no specification or ability to classify the consumers according to the age of the viewer. Additionally, duplicate exposures of the ads were not included in the study.Practical implications – Obesity is a serious and expanding concern for our ...

She’s already busy

Purpose – This study aims to examine women’s organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) or the voluntary, discretionary behaviors employees perform that are not linked to their reward system but benefit organizations. Specifically, it investigates several attitudinal and organizational antecedents relative to two sub-dimensions of OCB: organizational loyalty and helping behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – Alumnae (n = 160) responded to an e-mail survey regarding their self-reported OCBs, job satisfaction, work engagement and several demographic and organizational variables. Findings – In this fiscal climate, organizations are challenged with fostering an environment encouraging employees to go beyond job requirements. Findings here suggest that married women who are engaged in work have the highest propensity to do this by engaging in these non-compensated, non-mandated behaviors. However, importantly, differences were found between organizational loyalty citizenship and helping behaviors. An invers...

Real fruit substitution: the case of at-risk American families

Purpose Children’s fruit intake is a part of healthy nutrition. Several children’s food products “look like” fruit; hence potentially fruit substitutes. Packaging includes brand names, indicators, and health claims related to fruit. These packaging cues may potentially lead to misperceptions of the products. The purpose of this paper is to examine at-risk parents’ substitutions of children’s fruit-branded products for real fruit. At-risk parents are of particular interest as they are a vulnerable segment when it comes to nutrition. Design/methodology/approach At-risk families (n=149) completed a survey of their perceptions of children’s nutritional needs, fruit product substitutions, and brand purchase behavior. Findings At-risk parents report erroneous perceptions of children’s nutritional fruit intake needs. The results suggest that parents believe fruit-branded products are equivalent to real fruit. Parents’ knowledge and beliefs of fruit equivalency impact purchase decisions. Research limitations/implications Limitations include potential self-reporting and convenience sampling bias. The study did not attend to the complete product nutritional profile; only on fruit content. Future research should investigate other factors affecting food purchase decisions. Practical implications Industry and policy implications include the balance between governmental regulation of food marketing, voluntary corporate responsibility, and the need for education. Originality/value This study provides insights into children’s food product packaging on at-risk family perceptions of real fruit substitutes and purchase behaviors. With the market for these products increasing, there is limited research investigating the impact of these products on children’s nutritional intake.