Framing the Family Meal: A Comparison of Social Marketing Campaigns and Parents’ Views

• In Event: 054 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Gender, Race, and Class

Abstract

Motivated by research finding that children who eat with their families more frequently have better health and educational outcomes, several organizations have created campaigns that promote family meals. In a content analysis of 254 blocks of text from the websites of ten campaigns, I found that they focus on motivational frames that give reasons why family meals are important. Diagnostic frames, which identify and attribute the problem, and prognostic frames, which offer solutions, are less common in family meal campaigns. To compare framing strategies of family meal campaigns with parents’ understandings of feeding work, I interviewed 46 parents about the work that goes into feeding their families. Parents are already highly motivated to have family meals but struggle to achieve them, as the barriers they face to having the kinds of meals they want are not easy to overcome. This incongruence between campaign frames and parents’ frames is particularly pronounced for single parents. Instead of striving to motivate parents to have more family meals, campaigns that promote them should focus on offering practical strategies for making them easier.

Author

• Tracy Bacon, University of Arizona