Fast-Food Marketing and Children’s Fast-Food Consumption: Exploring Parents’ Influences in an Ethnically Diverse Sample

Sonya A. Grier is Associate Professor of Marketing, Kogod School of Business, American University (e-mail: [email protected]). Janell Mensinger is Director of the Clinical Research Unit, Department of Medicine, The Reading Hospital and Medical Center (e-mail: [email protected]). Shirley H. Huang is Attending Physician, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (e-mail: [email protected]. edu). Shiriki K. Kumanyika is Associate Dean for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (e-mail: [email protected]). Nicolas Stettler is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (e-mail: [email protected]). The Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Pilot Grant Research and Education Fund 2003–2004 supported the first author’s participation in this research. The Health Resources and Services Administration’s Regional Divisions II (New York City) and III (Philadelphia), the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Project EXPORT Grant No. P60 MD000209, the General Clinical Research Center of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Grant No. 5-MO1-RR-00240, NIH Grant Nos. HL 07433 and K23 RR16073, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia provided support for data collection and analysis. The authors thank the participating children, families, health-care providers, and leaders at Charles. B. Wang Community Health Center (New York, NY), Oak Orchard Community Health Center (Brockport, NY), Bronx Community Health Network (New York, NY), Pendleton Community Care (Franklin, WV), and Choptank Community Health System (Denton, MD). They also thank Steven Auerbach, MD, MPH, at the Health Resources and Services Administration, who served as their liaison to the community health centers, and Victor Brobbey for research assistance. The authors also thank Betsy Moore and the three anonymous JPP&M reviewers for their valuable insights. Childhood obesity has become a major societal concern. Rates of obesity among preschool and school-age children have more than doubled in the past three decades: 14% of 2to 5-year-olds and 19% of 6to 11-year-