Perception of food purchase influence among African-American child-parent dyads

Background: Food marketers target children because of their purchasing influence (PI) on parents. Per year, it is estimated that children spend $25 billion on food purchases for themselves and influence another $200 billion of parents' spending. Two dimensions of family communication styles are identified in the literature: Socio-orientation, which enhances the child's conformity to parental values in order to produce obedience and avoid controversy; and concept orientation, which encourages children to develop their own opinions and consider alternatives before making decisions. We explored the role of these family communication patterns on perceived food PI of African-American children over parents. Methods: We administered food PI questionnaires to a sample of 51 African-American child-parent pairs (N=102) outside two elementary schools in Harlem, a low-income NYC community. Correlation, regression, and nonparametric analysis of variance were used to explore relationships between communication patterns, child/parent ages, and number of children in the household on perceived PI. Results: We found no correlation between concept-orientation or socio-orientation with education (r=0.13, p=0.39; r=0.18, p=0.21, respectively), or income (r=-0.050, p=0.74; r=0.019, p=0.90). Perceived PI of children over parents was above average, score 17 (SD= 1.94) (range 8-24). In a multivariable regression analysis, only concept-orientation was a significant predictor of perceived influence of children (p=0.025). Conclusions: The concept-orientation family communication pattern may be a significant predictor of perceived PI of African-American children on their parents, suggesting that building PI into health interventions targeting consumer socialization of children around food choice may be a novel approach for influencing parental food-purchasing.