Don't children and teenagers think eating fish is cool enough?

Fish consumption has been relatively high in Iceland for a long time compared to other countries worldwide. It could even be said that the fish in the sea surrounding Iceland is part of the nation’s identity. Despite this, fish consumption in Iceland has decreased markedly over the past few decades. Today, many people eat less fish than recommended by dietary guidelines. There are undoubtedly many explanations for this development, and one of them could be that eating fish simply isn’t cool enough.

The findings of a recent study at the University of Iceland indicate that fish consumption among children and teenagers is, in fact, largely influenced by social factors. The results were published in the article „Obeying the rules at home, playing the status game at school“ in the journal Young Consumers in May. The research project's main goal is to identify possible methods to increase fish consumption among children and teenagers.

The project is led by Auður Hermannsdóttir, adjunct lecturer at the University of Iceland’s Faculty of Business Administration at the School of Social Sciences. Also involved in the project are Harri Luomala and Hanna Leipämaa-Leskinen, professors at the University of Vaasa in Finland. Both have researched marketing and consumer behaviour in connection with food before.

In the article, Auður and her co-authors examine in particular social norms, as knowledge of their effects can be useful in creating successful marketing strategies, for example, when creating marketing material or when designing health promotion campaigns.

Research sparked by both professional and personal reasons

Auður’s interest in finding ways to increase fish consumption among children and teenagers can be attributed to both professional and personal reasons.

“My passion within marketing lies in social marketing. Social marketing is an approach that uses marketing methods to design campaigns to influence people’s behaviour, aiming to improve their welfare and support socially feasible goals for the common good,” says Auður.

Encouraging people to consume more fish clearly falls under social marketing, given that fish consumption has many positive effects on individuals and that a better diet has obvious social benefits, including for the health care system.
Personally, Auður became especially interested in finding ways to combat her own children’s reluctance to eat fish.
“Oh, please don’t cook fish for dinner, mum!” was the usual reply when I told them we were having fish for dinner. I wanted to find out how to minimise this reluctance and at the same time increase the likelihood of them cooking fish as they reach adulthood,” she explains.

Examining fish consumption through social norms

As mentioned before, Auður and her co-authors examined fish consumption in relation to social norms.
“In short, social norms can be explained as the ideas we have about how other people behave in any given circumstances and also how we think others think we should behave in given circumstances,” says Auður.

Social norms are generally divided into two categories: descriptive norms, which involve what we think people around us do and how they behave, and injunctive norms, which involve what we perceive others around us think is acceptable behaviour on our part.

Auður points out that these two different social norms are based on separate sources of motivation. “Descriptive norms provide information about typical behaviour in specific circumstances. The idea is that if other people show a particular behaviour, for example, eating fish or not, then it must be a sensible and appropriate behaviour,” explains Auður and continues: “However, injunctive norms describe ideas about what kind of behaviour is accepted or not by others. Their effect is determined by a longing for social acceptance. Just as these two different norms are based on separate sources of motivation, they impact behaviour, in this instance fish consumption, in different ways. Descriptive norms encourage behaviour by showing what’s common and appropriate, whereas injunctive norms influence behaviour by reinforcing expectations of social acceptance or fear of social rejection.”

Data from nearly 750 children

The study measures children's and teenagers’ ideas about descriptive and injunctive norms regarding eating fish in two contexts: at home, where perceived social norms from parents are examined, and at school, where perceived social norms from their peers are explored.

“The aim of the study is to examine whether social norms influence children’s consumption of fish. We also investigate whether children’s age moderates the potential influences. The research focuses on children across a wide age range, from 6 to 15 years of age, thus covering the entire compulsory school period,” explains Auður.

The researchers used a quantitative research design and collected data using a self-administered questionnaire. “We thought it would be important for the children to be able to answer the questionnaire without help from their parents or other adults. However, it was evident that not all of the youngest children in the sample had sufficient reading skills, and therefore couldn’t read the questionnaire items and response options.”

Therefore, the team of researchers hired the research agency Vísar to design a software for the questionnaire that included both a speech synthesis and pictorial response options. This enabled the children to click icons to have the questions and response options read aloud. Pictorial representations of each response option were also specially designed.

The group also enlisted the help of Gallup in Iceland. “The sample consisted of 3,000 individuals with children aged 6-15. The children's parents were required to provide informed consent for their children's participation, and the children themselves were also required to give informed assent. Thus, the study is based on data from 743 children aged 6 to 15, with a good distribution across both age groups and gender,” explains Auður.

Parents and peers influence fish consumption

The findings show that both children and teenagers most often eat fish when it is served for dinner at home, regardless of age. However, they are much less likely to consume fish when it is served at school. The findings also revealed that as children get older, they are less likely to eat fish when it is served at school.

Moreover, descriptive and injunctive norms at home have a positive effect on fish consumption across all age groups, though the latter has a decidedly greater effect than the former.

“This tells us that fish consumption at home is to a large extent explained by whether children and teenagers perceive that their parents want them to eat fish. The children perceive encouragement from their parents to eat fish, rather than simply observing their parents eating and enjoying it. These effects were observed regardless of the children's age,” says Auður. She also points out that the effects at school proved different and more complex. “The results showed that descriptive norms — whether schoolmates ate fish or not — had stronger effects on younger children, whereas teenagers were more strongly influenced by injunctive norms, or by their perception of what their schoolmates thought about their fish consumption. This suggests that they were more sensitive to perceived peer pressure than younger children.”

Overall, the results show that social norms have an effect in both the home and at school, but the effects differ. As a result, children’s context and age must be considered when designing campaigns or marketing messages to encourage fish consumption.

Messages tailored to different age groups

What kinds of messages are most effective in convincing children and teenagers that eating fish is appealing, or even cool?

“To encourage fish consumption at home, the most effective approach would likely be to emphasise messages that activate the effects of injunctive norms, regardless of whether the messages are aimed at younger children or teenagers," says Auður.

As mentioned before, matters become more complicated at school, where peer pressure and socially accepted behaviour among teenagers play a role. Auður points out that messaging must reach different age groups at school.

“To encourage fish consumption at school, messages must be tailored to different ages. Marketing messages or campaigns aimed at younger children should appeal to descriptive norms. They should send the message that children their age eat fish and like it. The messages could read like this: “Did you know that most children like fish? It’s not only delicious, but it makes you stronger and smarter.” For teenagers, however, messages should be designed to appeal to injunctive norms by conveying that eating fish is a socially accepted behaviour among their peers. Such messages could, for example, read: “Eating fish twice a week isn't just a trend, it's a lifestyle. Don't be the one left out!’”