What do children want, and what do parents buy?

As part of the GAMEHEALTH project, Professor Ružica Brečić participated virtually in the 2026 AMA Summer Academic Conference on 20 July 2026.

At the conference, she presented the study “Implicit–Explicit (Mis)Match in Parent–Child Food Attitudes”, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Dario Cvencek from the University of Washington and Dr. Urša Bernardič from ETH Zürich.

The study shows that children are not simply passive recipients of their parents’ food-related habits and preferences. Children’s own attitudes toward food influence what they ask their parents to buy and are also linked to actual household purchasing decisions.

These findings contribute to a better understanding of children’s eating behaviour and family food-purchasing decisions, while also opening new possibilities for designing more effective interventions aimed at encouraging healthier food purchases.

More information about the conference is available here.