Kathleen Seiders and Ross D. Petty
Executive Summary
This commentary discusses the policy implications of the articles in the special section on childhood obesity. Children are an important focus here both because of the dramatic increase in childhood obesity in recent decades and because they lack the cognitive development and social experience to process marketing communications with the sophistication of adults. In addition, children's food purchase decisions are substantially influenced by their parents. This essay explores the implications of the findings of the special section empirical studies for potential remedies and opportunities for future marketing research in this critical area.
Although packaged-food marketers are setting their own voluntary restrictions on products to be marketed during entertainment content targeted at children, the impact of such restrictions is limited because children are substantial viewers of general entertainment content. This essay suggests that more prominent nutrition disclosure oriented toward obesity concerns for both packaged foods and fast-food restaurants should be more fully considered. It further suggests that increased marketing research is needed to understand children as consumers, the role of parents as gatekeepers, and the differences between ethnic population segments. Marketing research also can contribute to assessing the effectiveness of different regulatory approaches adopted by various countries and the viability of mass educational approaches versus individual encouragement by parents, doctors, and others. The authors note that because obesity is a long-term health problem, a longitudinal tracking study would be useful in studying both health effects over time and the effectiveness of various policy interventions.
Biography
Kathleen Seiders in Associate Professor of Marketing in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. She received her PhD at Texas A&M University, where she was affiliated with the Center for Retailing Studies, and previously taught at Babson College. Seiders had a ten-year career in food retailing, with a focus on operations management. Her research has been published in journals, such as Organizational Dynamics, Journal of Marketing, Sloan Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Retailing, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Her research interests include retailing strategy, services marketing, and food marketing. Her current research projects focus on service convenience and children's prevention behavior.
Ross D. Petty is a Professor of Marketing Law at Babson College. He has written extensively in the area of marketing law and is the author of The Impact of Advertising Law on Business and Public Policy (1992). His research and articles have been recognized for excellence by Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Product and Brand Management, and the Academy of Legal Studies in Business.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol. 26, No. 2, Fall 2007
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