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8 February 2007
Auckland
The lunchbox is still the way most kids get food during the day at school. An ACNielsen survey has estimated that every day approximately 410,000 lunches are prepared for New Zealand school kids, the majority of which are prepared by parents.
The ACNielsen research involved talking to kids aged nine to 14 from eight Auckland schools about their lunches, as well as to parents from around New Zealand. Areas delved into include parental views of the role of the lunchbox in their child’s diet, pressures on lunchbox preparation, foods that go in the lunchbox, and how behaviour is changing over time. Kids spoke about their attitudes to the lunchbox, and their role in deciding what is included.
Role of the Lunchbox
Parents see the school lunch as an important part of the child’s school day: it fills them up; it keeps them going so that they can play and participate in sport; as well as providing vital ‘brain food’ to enable them to continue to concentrate and learn throughout the day. Without a ‘good lunch’, kids would not have the energy to participate in sport, to interact in a positive way with other kids and develop social skills, and to be able to effectively learn and concentrate on their lessons. In addition to all of this, parents want their kids to like their lunches.
“Parents love their kids and want to feel they are enjoying the food they are getting in their lunch. It’s not only about health , it’s also about happy kids,“ says Ms Julie MacKenzie, Associate Director at ACNielsen.
What’s in the Lunchbox
With parents aiming to keep their kids happy and energised throughout the day, a balanced lunchbox is the fundamental approach many parents are striving for.
The sandwich (or buns / wraps) is still king of the lunchbox. It is the main component of the lunchbox around which other foods are built, mainly because it is a great filler. However, sandwiches provide the platform for getting some other good stuff, such as cheese or salad, into the kids. White bread is still the most common bread choice for kid’s lunches, though parents clearly see different nutritional benefits for all of the different bread types.
Parents love putting fruit in the lunchbox – they know that they are getting all kinds of good nutrients into their children and have no worries about the sugar content or other ‘baddies’ that are often a part of packaged food. But nearly 80 percent of parents say fruit is becoming less popular with kids.
A third core component of the lunchbox is the ‘treat’. This is the part of the lunchbox that kids love and that parents feel ok about putting in as part of a balanced lunchbox. All kinds of foods fill this role – muesli bars, biscuits, home-baking, chips, popcorn, and dipping snacks such as Arnott’s Tiny Teddies.
Parents Under Pressure
Parents have less control over what their kids eat at school than any other meal occasion. “Parents can pack the best lunch in the world, but if it comes home uneaten, Mum and Dad can experience a lot of anxiety knowing that their child didn’t eat anything at school today,” says Ms MacKenzie.
There’s a lot of pressure on parents today from a lot of different areas. On one side there’s what the child will and won’t eat, the food environment where convenient, high fat, high sugar foods are plentiful and healthier foods that kids will eat are harder to find, there’s time poor working parents trying to manage a multitude of demands and needs, and there’s the perception that healthier foods cost more than the less healthy options.
On the other side there’s the ‘little voice in your head reminding you of what your mother would say’, there’s the media attention on childhood obesity, school policies, and health professionals such as dentists, and the feeling that you are being judged as either a good or bad parent based on the quality of the lunchbox you prepare.
Parents Cope in Different Ways
Parents respond to the pressures in different ways. Some are able to simply insist that their kids eat a nutritional and healthy lunch everyday, believing that the school lunch is as important as any other meal occasion. Some parents battle with their kids to try and achieve a balance between getting the child to eat and healthiness. Others believe that what’s in the lunchbox doesn’t matter that much, as long as the child has a healthy breakfast and dinner.
Many parents use the lunchbox as an opportunity for their children to learn about decision-making as they get older by giving them responsibility on deciding what goes in the lunchbox. By the age of 11, 20 percent of Auckland school kids say they decide on everything that goes in the lunchbox, with Mum and Dad having no involvement at all.
“This is fine if the child is making good choices, but some kids won’t be. We need to remember that some adults struggle to make good choices in our modern food environment. We can’t expect children to be better at these decisions than adults,” says Julie MacKenzie.
About ACNielsen
ACNielsen, a unit of The Nielsen Company, is the world's leading marketing information provider. Offering services in more than 100 countries, the unit provides measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics and consumer attitudes and behavior. Clients rely on ACNielsen's market research, proprietary products, analytical tools and professional service to understand competitive performance, to uncover new opportunities and to raise the profitability of their marketing and sales campaigns.
About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognised brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek) and trade shows. The privately held company has more than 42,000 employees and is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA.
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