We have seen in earlier chapters that children are often regarded as difficult when it comes to family meals and food choice. The threat to family harmony and cohe- sion posed by children is, however, echoed in broader public realms. The idea of children and young people as socially disruptive has a long history in Western cul- ture. For example, Pearson (1983) discusses the history of children as social misfits, threatening public (that is, social) order and private (that is, family) har- mony. This view of children prevails in current public understanding. For example, media and public perceptions of young people – pre-teens and teenagers – indicate a strong belief that children are often regarded as socially deviant, selfish, and likely to cause trouble (Bolzan, 2005). The case of the murder in Britain of Jamie Bulger – who was killed by two children under ten years old – fuelled public fear that almost any child was capable of extreme acts of violence and social disorder (White and Habibis, 2005). The position of children as dangerous, even creatures about which to harbour feelings of dread, extends even into the early years. As Hays puts it,
It seems to me that parents have always feared their infants and young chil- dren somewhat. After all, small children are strange and fragile beings. They look and act not at all like adults, they cry for unknown reasons, they suck at and even bite their mothers’ breasts, they are uncoordinated, they get sick easily, their demands are incessant, their appetites appear endless, and their excretions seem inhuman.
The child as problem has had profound effects on the ways in which children are fed in families. As we have already seen in an earlier chapter, children’s eating preferences can dominate family food practices. Indeed, the ‘problem’ eater is a common phenomenon. Dixon and Banwell (2004a) note that in modern families children have taken the place of men at the head of the table. By this they mean that children’s food choices are given household priority over that of parents. The primacy given to children’s food choices, as we have seen from the interviews in Chapter 9, develops out of pragmatism and ideology. Pragmatism arises when parents are simply not willing to make mealtimes into battlegrounds and ideology assures parents of their alignment with current discourses on how reasonable par- ents should behave.
The arrival of the child as ‘problem’ eater to some extent developed out of a new form of parenting, one that gives children substantial choice and voice in family life (Coveney, 2004). The importance of child-centredness – creating in children independence, freedom and self-expression – is paramount in modern parenting styles, replacing the more strict and disciplined forms of parenting of an earlier era. And while new forms of parenting are regarded as taxing, both emo- tionally and financially, and labour intensive (Hays, 1996: 45), parents appear to rate them highly. As May, one of the parents in the study discussed in Chapter 9, reports, the child-centred parenting practices found in Australia are much prefer- able to the more authoritarian practices she remembered in Vietnam.
The idea of children choosing food, especially nutritious food, is however highly problematic, as the information provided by parents testifies. Children are exposed to a range of ideas about food and taste not only from inside the home, but importantly outside too. Television advertising to children, for example, has been shown to influence children’s food choices (Taras et al., 1989; Donkin et al., 1993), and peer pressure has been demonstrated to alter children’s food selection (Ludvigsen and Sharma, 2004). Children are therefore able to bring into the fam- ily a range of food preferences directed by outside influences. The notion of the child as agent for outside food influences brings with it problems of childhood which require parents to be ever vigilant. Indeed, in describing the places where children can be influenced by food promotion, the UK Food Standards Agency states that: ‘today, food promotion is multifaceted, including print and radio, SMS text messages, celebrity endorsement, sponsorship materials, point of sale promo- tion, vending machines, voucher schemes, often supported by powerful branding’ (Food Standards Agency, 2005).
While protecting children is hardly a new role for parents, the kinds and types of influences to which parents must be alert have multiplied. Moreover, parents need to resist pressure from within the family, especially from children them- selves. The notion of ‘pester power’ – where children make constant requests to parents for specific goods or services, often ones that have been marketed and advertised – has become a term in common use. Pester power operates most com- monly when children accompany parents into the marketplace. Shops and supermarkets are prime arenas for the display of pester power. As ‘pests’, children
are regarded as highly problematic because of their constant badgering of parents who are often not able to resist. In one survey only a minority of parents (11 per cent) said they would definitely say ‘no’ in the face of pester power (Gelperowic and Beharrell, 1994). In the area of food and nutrition, the idea of pester power has been invoked during discussions on the influence of food advertising to chil- dren, especially in relation to advertising unhealthy products. Exposure to advertising opens up a number of other situations where children are regarded as problematic. For example, the amount of time spent watching television has been examined extensively, especially in relation to overweight and obesity in child- hood. The logic here is that television viewing not only encourages sedentary behaviour but also places the child before highly influential advertising cam- paigns which encourage either direct consumption of the food or exert an influence over the family via pester power. The effect of television food advertis- ing on children’s food choices has been an area of nutrition research, demonstrating that children are indeed more likely to remember those foods which they have just been exposed to in television advertisements (Hitchings and Moynihan, 1998). Thus as agents of change within families, children can exert high demands for unhealthy foods. As one commentator for the food industry put it, ‘Kids are a brand manager’s best friend’ (Arnott, 1993). The consumerist nature of children, and the threat they pose to family life and social order, has not gone unnoticed in other areas of public life. In a recent UK article on violence perpetrated by youth, one author asks, ‘Why are we so afraid of children?’ (Craig, 2002). The authority with which children speak and act, their impact on social life generally, and on family life in particular, and the protection afforded them cre- ates for many adults a feeling of fear, anxiety and guilt. Guilt is no doubt amplified by the belief that even in today’s child-centred discourse, the needs of children are not always prioritised. For example, in her book Children First, Penelope Leach – a well-known author of books on parenting – points to short- comings in current childrearing practices, mainly as a result of the draw of the marketplace where financial imperatives overshadow quality time parents can spend raising children (Leach, 1994). The resulting negligence can be seen when parents outsource to childcare and other agencies the responsibility of childrear- ing. Similar arguments can be found in relation to fatness in children. The failure by parents to protect their children from overweight or obesity constitutes, in the eyes of some, no less than child neglect. Arguing that fatness in children is as much a moral problem as a health problem, Lotz is clear where the responsibility lies: ‘I have argued that it is morally wrong for parents to allow their children to become or remain obese, since it constitutes the causing of indirect harm to the child, through a form of parental neglect’ (Lotz, 2004: 294).
The basis of this argument lies in the belief that, far from being agents of free choice, children are ‘not-as-yet-fully-rational agents’ and that children do not and should not enjoy the same level of autonomy as adults (Lotz, 2004: 288). Within this belief of childhood, children are required to be sheltered and protected from the forces of fatness. Left unprotected by parents, and indeed the State, which
sees the liberty of parents as a right, children are at the mercy of a market which seeks to encourage in them consumerist practices. Thus, as innocent victims, overweight children signify a failure not only of proper parenting but also of State protection. The idea that children are indeed innocent victims in the obesity epi- demic is the subject to which we now turn.