Day 047 - 07 Nov 94 - Page 45
1 for, specially where food is concerned because they know if
2 the children have asked for them there is a good chance
3 they will eat them and enjoy them, so I am surprised in
4 fact that only 39 percent agree that they often buy
5 products that their children asked them to. I would have
6 guessed that a higher proportion did.
7
8 Q. You don't think that that is a problem that children are
9 persuading their parents to buy foods that they wouldn't
10 otherwise buy?
11 A. I don't think that it's a problem per say. I think
12 that I have said as a parent and grand parent one quite
13 often responds positively to requests from children, one
14 sometimes doesn't. It's a matter of what those requests
15 are, but I believe that to assume that for a parent to buy
16 an advertised good or drink which they may not know about
17 but which their children would think they will like. That
18 seems to me to be a reasonable thing for a parent to do.
19
20 Q. Even if the product wasn't particularly good for the child.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You see I was about to ask whether it would
23 make -- what that question does not have in, which it
24 might have had, and which one might have been interested in
25 the answer to, was is if it read, I often end up buying
26 advertised food or drinks which I don't think are very good
27 for my children or which I think are not good for my
28 children, and which I wouldn't otherwise buy because my
29 children asked me to?
30 A. My Lord, that's not the question.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But that's not the question.
33 A. So, I think the point I am trying to make is that the
34 questions are no doubt good questions or Morey wouldn't ask
35 them, but there are many ways of asking a question and I
36 think one has to be very careful about the interpretation
37 one places on the answers and indeed on the questions.
38
39 MS. STEEL: Well, wouldn't you say that it's clear from this that
40 pester power, whether or not the foods are healthy, pester
41 power does have an affect in quite a number of families?
42 A. As I have said I am not happy with the term pester
43 power. A journalist rang me last week and said did I know
44 that some vegetarian organisation was urging children to go
45 home and pester their parents to become vegetarians. Was
46 that pester power? And I said that it was no better nor
47 worse than any other example of pester power. It's
48 perfectly possible for children to be persuaded by a
49 variety of sources to ask their parents to do something or
50 other, but the decision lies with the parents.
51
52 Q. But if the parents, if the parents have to say no, that
53 creates a degree of conflict, doesn't it?
54 A. I think children are used to the fact that their
55 parents will say no to many requests or suggestions. They
56 often make requests of an outrageous nature in order to
57 find out how far their parents are prepared to go
58
59 Q. It would create a degree of conflict?
60 A. There is a degree of conflict of interest in families
