Giving Compass' Take:

• Writing for The Chronicle of Social Change, Gabrielle Tilley discusses a new study from Stanford explaining why some low-income parents decide to feed their children fast food: Not only is it affordable, it is also a way to communicate affection.

• How can we start shifting the mindset of families of all socioeconomic statuses to adopt a healthier diet? Could better school meal options through locally-sourced vendors make an impact?

• With obesity rates on the rise, we need to focus on teaching children better eating habits.

Feeding a child is about more than just nutrition; it’s also a means of communicating love. Yet, for low-income parents, meals tend to involve fast food and processed snacks. It’s not that they lack knowledge on healthy eating, or that they don’t care about their child’s health. Rather, junk food is an affordable way to satisfy their child’s needs — and their wants.

A new study from Stanford sheds light on why some parents choose to show love through fast food. After in-depth interviews with more than 160 parents and children up and down the income ladder, the author found that being able to indulge a child’s request might motivate poor parents to buy that can of soda more than affordability alone.

The findings of this study challenge the notion that low-income parents buy junk food for their kids just because it’s cheap, or because they don’t know better. The desire to give a child what they want might be the stronger motivation. This is cause for hope, because it means parents are interested in feeding kids the foods they crave. Knowing that, efforts to reshape a child’s palette are well placed, because they will in turn influence the kind of food parents buy.

Read the full article about junk food perceptions by Gabrielle Tilley at The Chronicle of Social Change.