Edutainment in childhood obesity prevention: a complex topic

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to see if edutainment containing only healthy food can change children’s preferences and food choices toward healthy eating, especially in overweight or obese children, and if the children’s self-regulation, emotional overeating and parents that use food as a reward would influence those changes. This is important because childhood obesity is one of the biggest public health problems of the 21st century.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a study in two public schools (total 189 children) with a between-subjects experimental design (control vs experimental group), where children in experimental group watched an episode of Nutri Ventures series without unhealthy foods.

Findings

The results showed no differences in both children’s preferences and children’s food choices between the control and experimental group, with exception of older children, and contrary to our expectations. Older children in the experimental group chose more unhealthy food than children in the control group. The authors also saw differences in food choices between “emotional overeating” groups, where the children in “high” group tended to choose less healthy food items, especially in the experimental group of children. This leads the authors to believe that isolated edutainment may not be enough to change preferences and food choices; instead it might even have an opposite effect.

Originality/value

This study aimed to identify if edutainment containing only healthy food could be more effective in childhood obesity prevention but instead it showed how complex the whole topic can be.

Citation

Sintra, D. and Agante, L. (2020), "Edutainment in childhood obesity prevention: a complex topic", Young Consumers, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 289-304. https://doi.org/10.1108/YC-09-2019-1050