Blaming Mothers for Kids’ Diets Lets Industries Off the Hook

Too often people dismiss industry’s role in putting harmful products in the hands of kids by blaming parents for letting them use or consume them. Most of the time “parents” is code for “mothers.” And from social media use to candy consumption, from disruptive behaviors to child diabetes, mother blame is rampant.

In some ways, it makes sense. We still expect mothers to carry the biggest part of childcare. So, if something goes wrong, they must be at fault. Besides the obvious gender stereotyping, this mentality ignores the context in which mothers parent. It misunderstands the gravitational pull of a commercial food system.

It’s tempting to think that mothers can just forbid their kids from consuming harmful products. In fact, industries love those kinds of individual responsibility arguments. After all, if what companies are doing is simply offering choices for everyone to freely make in the marketplace, then how can they be accountable for what comes next? Never mind the addictive product design, attractive (subsidized) cheap prices, and aggressive, manipulative, and misleading marketing practices. Never mind the relentless corporate political activities to keep a permissive regulatory landscape so nothing much changes. Never mind the use of advertising, PR, athlete endorsements, celebrity spokespeople, and online influencers to spread consumption far and wide until it feels to us as ‘just how things are.’

One example of corporate-driven normalization of unhealthy behaviors is the creation of “kid food,” a category of consumables that didn’t exist until industry willed it into being. Now you can’t get away from a suite of staple, unhealthy items offered on children’s menus everywhere. Think chicken fingers, burgers and fries, and butter pasta, served with a choice of sugar-filled soda - no fruits, non-french-fry vegetables, or legumes in sight. That includes establishments like Lego Discovery Center, whose target, often captive, audience is children. Outside of restaurant meals, we think kid food means sugary cereals, packaged snacks, and a constant flow of sweet treats.

As a mother, I can tell you that you have surprisingly little control over much of what your children consume, even very young ones. Most parents entrust their children to the world outside the home for most of the day. What happens there can be instructive to the challenges mothers face.

7:15 am - Maiah gets breakfast at her public elementary school that participates in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) school meals program that provides breakfasts, lunches, and snacks that have had strict nutrition standards applied since the passing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010. A significant part of what’s offered comes from well-known brands that reformulate their products to meet the sugar, fat, and salt limits on food destined for the K-12 $40bn/year food service market. These “copycat” foods thus technically meet the nutrition standards set by USDA. However, many of them – cereals, waffles, muffins, chips, granola bars – still qualify as highly processed foods. And the packaging hasn’t changed. So, school kids continue to develop brand loyalty that inspires them to repeatedly nag their parents to buy the brands at the supermarket, something industries bank on in their “pester power marketing” strategies. Yet, their parents won’t be able to buy the healthier reformulated versions in the non-school market. Maiah starts her day with Froot Loops and orange juice.