GEM NO. 409

Family Fun with New Foods: A Parent Component to theFood Friends Social Marketing Campaign

Laura Bellows, MPH, RD,*Program Coordinator, Dept. of FoodScience and Human Nutrition,Colorado State University,Fort Collins, CO; E-mail:bellows@cahs.colostate.edu.

Kathleen Cole, MS, RD,Nutritionist, Cleveland CountyHealth Department, Shelby, NC

Jennifer Anderson Gabel, PhD, RD,Professor and Extension Specialist,Dept. of Food Science and HumanNutrition, Colorado State University,Fort Collins, CO

(J Nutr Educ Behav. 2006;38:123-124)

*Address for correspondence: Laura Bellows,MPH, RD, Program Coordinator, ColoradoNutrition Network, Dept. of Food Science andHuman Nutrition, Colorado State University,Fort Collins, CO 80523-1571; Tel: (970) 491-1305; Fax: (970) 491-7252;doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2005.11.038

INTRODUCTION

Food neophobia, the “fear” of eatingnew foods, is a normal stage of childdevelopment and often emerges be-tween the ages of 2 and 3.1 Increasingchildren’s willingness to try new foodsimproves the likelihood that childrenwill eat a wider range of essential nu-trients needed for growth, develop-ment, and good health. Preschoolersare at a perfect age to increase theirwillingness to try new foods if they aregiven a chance to explore, taste, andeat new foods in a positive setting.Although preschool centers often en-courage children to try new foods, thebehavior is seen less often in thehome environment.

Ideally, parents should providechildren with between 8 and 12 op-portunities to taste a new food. Theseopportunities should be within posi-tive social contexts so there is further

reinforcement of the food’s accept-

ability.2,3 Unfortunately, however,children often do not have repeatedopportunities to eat new foods be-cause parents believe children’s initialrejection of a new food reflects a per-sistent dislike for the food, and par-ents are concerned over wasting foodand money if children reject foodsthat are offered.4

PROGRAM DESIGN ANDDEVELOPMENT

Food Friends—Making New Foods Funfor Kids® is a twelve-week programcurrently being implemented in pre-school centers throughout Colorado.In an effort to increase preschoolers’willingness to try new foods, the FoodFriends program combines social mar-keting and educational strategies toengage children by providing themwith opportunities to taste novelfoods, participate in hands-on nutri-tion activities, and read storybookssupporting the “try new foods”theme.5,6 A bilingual component forparents, Family Fun with New Foods, ispresented to encourage parents to per-sistently and consistently offer newfoods to their preschool-agedchildren.

Educational messages and re-sources for the Family Fun with NewFoods component were designed withconsistent input from the target audi-ence, namely low-income parents of3- to 5-year-old children enrolled in aHead Start or preschool implement-ing the Food Friends program. Tele-phone interviews were conductedwith parents (n � 26) in both Englishand Spanish to determine informa-tion, materials, messages, and pre-ferred form of dissemination thatwould most effectively encourage con-sistent and persistent offering of newfoods to kids. Results from telephoneinterviews, as well as constructs of the

Social Learning Theory, helped guide

the development of educational infor-mation and materials for parents. Fur-thermore, potential taglines andgraphics were developed from targetaudience feedback and from expertadvice from nutrition educators, childfeeding specialists, and marketing andcommunication professionals. Threephases of pretesting were conductedwith 414 parents, Head Start staff,and experts. Based on pretesting re-sults, “Family Fun with New Foods”was chosen as the tagline message,and “Enjoy New Foods Today forGood Health Tomorrow” was chosenas the secondary message. A graphicwith the Food Friends characters eat-ing together portrays and reinforcesthe tagline and secondary messages(Figure 1).

The bilingual parent componentof Family Fun with New Foods encour-ages parents to create an environmentthat provides children with multipleopportunities to learn about and trynew foods at home. It is based on 7simple tips for offering new foods tokids. These tips are seen repeatedlythrough parent materials, includingnewsletter articles, handouts, activitytips with recipes, and fun food activi-ties for families. Colorful handouts,written at no more than an eighthgrade reading level, supply parentswith quick and easy recipes that in-volve their children, the 7 simple tipsand activities that incorporate schoolreadiness skills into learning aboutnew foods. For example, our Read To-gether handout provides parents withbook suggestions that have a “try newfoods” theme, a “Bike Wheel Pizza”recipe. The parent component also in-cludes educational enhancers to re-mind parents to offer new foods totheir families, especially to theiryoung children. These enhancers in-clude: a magnet, sent home with theirchild’s drawing of their favorite FoodFriends character; a cookie cutter

shaped like Ollie Orange, a favorite

124 Bellows et al./GEM NO. 409

Food Friends character is sent homewith the “Make Food Fun” handout;and a shopping list is provided at theconclusion of the program. Based onthe formative evaluation with the tar-get audience, educational resourcesare disseminated via the children’sbackpack and/or cubby hole at leastevery other week during the 12-weekprogram.

Educational resources address bar-riers to offering new foods, suggestionsfor ways to offer a variety of newfoods, and tips to help children learnabout and try new foods. Also in-cluded are recommendations for com-municating with children to encour-age them to eat new foods, strategiesto make meals less stressful, informa-tion about the effect of multiple foodexposures and the use of reward sys-tems on children’s food preferences,the importance of a social context foreating, and the influence of parents’eating behaviors on their children’s

Figure 1. Food Friends characters eatingtogether.

eating behaviors.

In addition to receiving massquantities of 6 handouts and the edu-cational enhancers, preschool andHead Start center staff are providedwith a Family Fun with New Foodsbinder, which includes suggestions forstaff regarding distribution of educa-tional information, materials, and thetagline and secondary messagethroughout the 12-week program.Master copies and electronic versions(on CD-ROM) of educational re-sources, in both English and Spanish,are included in the binder. Addition-ally, posters with the parent taglineand graphic, bulletin board sugges-tions, and ideas for parent involve-ment activities are provided for pre-school staff. The use of these materialsvaries from center to center.

IMPLEMENTATION

The Food Friends social marketingprogram was implemented in approx-imately 225 Colorado Head Start andpreschool classrooms during the 2004school year, reaching 4641 childrenand parents. Initial feedback from par-ents regarding the Family Fun withNew Foods materials has been verypositive. The efficacy of these materi-als is currently being studied.

SUMMARY

Repeated exposure to a variety ofhealthful foods may, over time, in-crease children’s willingness to trynew foods, reduce food struggles be-tween parents and children, and helpchildren establish healthy life-longeating behaviors. The intent of theparent component of the FoodFriends-Making New Foods Fun forKids program is to help parents create

an environment that provides chil-

dren with multiple opportunities tolearn about and try new foods outsidethe preschool setting.

Anyone interested in more infor-mation about the program is encour-aged to contact the authors or visitThe Food Friends program Web site:www.foodfriends.org.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was initially funded byUSDA Food and Nutrition Servicesthrough the Colorado Department ofHuman Services Food Stamp Pro-gram, the Caring for Colorado Foun-dation, and The Colorado Trust. Cre-ative design and development for theprogram materials were done underthe direction of Stratecom, a market-ing strategies and communication firmin Boulder, Colorado. The activitiesin this manuscript served as Kathleen(Menkhaus) Cole’s Masters Thesis inthe Department of Food Science andHuman Nutrition at Colorado StateUniversity.

REFERENCES

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4. Birch L. Children’s food acceptance pat-terns. Nutr Today. 1996;31:234-240.

5. Young L, Anderson J, Beckstrom L, BellowsL, Johnson SL. Using social marketing prin-ciples to guide the development of a nutri-tion education initiative for preschool-agedchildren. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2004;36:250-259.

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