TY - GEN

T1 - Parental views on public-policy options regarding healthy eating

AU - Wickins-Drazilova, Dita

AU - Nicholls, Stuart

AU - Williams, Garrath

AU - Börnhorst, Claudia

AU - Grafström, L

AU - De Henauw, S.

AU - Marild, S

AU - Molnar, Denes

AU - Moreno Aznar, Luis

AU - Pigeot, Iris

AU - Siani, A.

AU - Tornartis, Michael

AU - Veidebaum, T

AU - Ahrens, Wolfgang

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - As part of the IDEFICS obesity intervention study, baseline opinions about key issues were elicited from the parents of children about to take part in the intervention in eight European countries. This was done by a questionnaire, in which a set of questions was specifically designed to investigate attitudes towards ethical and public-policy aspects of interventions on healthy lifestyle and diet. The aim of these questions was partly to elicit parents’ views concerning the ethics and effectiveness of interventions, responsibilities of schools and parents themselves, and also to gain some indication as to how parents might view some of the policy options available.Here we present analysis of three of the questions on public-policy regarding healthy eating:1. “I feel that the authorities don’t do enough to support healthy eating.”2. “There should be a controlled restriction on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods.”3. “Very unhealthy foods should be highly taxed while healthy foods should besubsidised.”We report here that there are statistically significant differences between therespondents both by country, and by gender. There is strong support among parents for controlled restriction on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods, as well as supporting of taxation of ‘unhealthy’ foods and subsidising of ‘healthy’ foods. In most countries men are more critical of authorities’ support of healthy eating than women, and they are also more in favour of taxation and subsidising of certain types of food.

AB - As part of the IDEFICS obesity intervention study, baseline opinions about key issues were elicited from the parents of children about to take part in the intervention in eight European countries. This was done by a questionnaire, in which a set of questions was specifically designed to investigate attitudes towards ethical and public-policy aspects of interventions on healthy lifestyle and diet. The aim of these questions was partly to elicit parents’ views concerning the ethics and effectiveness of interventions, responsibilities of schools and parents themselves, and also to gain some indication as to how parents might view some of the policy options available.Here we present analysis of three of the questions on public-policy regarding healthy eating:1. “I feel that the authorities don’t do enough to support healthy eating.”2. “There should be a controlled restriction on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods.”3. “Very unhealthy foods should be highly taxed while healthy foods should besubsidised.”We report here that there are statistically significant differences between therespondents both by country, and by gender. There is strong support among parents for controlled restriction on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods, as well as supporting of taxation of ‘unhealthy’ foods and subsidising of ‘healthy’ foods. In most countries men are more critical of authorities’ support of healthy eating than women, and they are also more in favour of taxation and subsidising of certain types of food.

KW - Food

KW - interventions

KW - survey questionnaire

KW - children

KW - obesity

M3 - Conference contribution/Paper

SP - 184

EP - 188

BT - Proceedings of the 9th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics: Global Food Security: Ethical and Legal Challenges

A2 - Casabona, C M R

A2 - San Epifanio, L E

A2 - Cirión, A E

PB - Wageningen Academic Publishers

ER -