A study using a nationally representative survey of parents in England, to be presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2026, Istanbul, Turkey, 12-15 May), reveals that over half (58%) of parents are frequently pestered by their children or teens to purchase products high in fats, salts and/or sugar (HFSS) when food shopping in stores or online, and almost three-quarters (72%) reported often buying the requested item.
Notably, shopping with children was the second most common reason parents reported for influencing unplanned food purchases (52%), after price promotions and instore offers (59%).
The findings, that form part of the PUSHED project, reveal the considerable influence the food environment has on requests for unhealthy products from children, driven in large part by instore and media marketing.
"While children might not be paying the bill at the checkout, their influence over their parents' purchasing decisions is very real," said principal investigator Emma Boyland, Professor of Food Marketing and Child Health at the University of Liverpool, UK. "Parents can, and do, say no but the current food environment does not help parents to feed their children healthy diets."
"Our findings highlight the need for significant transformation of online and instore food shopping environments and marketing, both of which have a huge influence on what products parents buy and children eat, and increase the risk of childhood obesity."
One in three 11-year-olds in England are living with overweight or obesity when they leave primary school [1]. Although the causes of obesity are complex, it is largely attributed to environments that drive children's preference for and consumption of HFSS foods and beverages. It had been proposed that children's requests for junk food when shopping could contribute through their impacts on what parents buy.
To find out more, the researchers set out to explore parents' experiences of child pestering for HFSS foods during shopping in store and online and its impact on purchases, as well as pestering triggers and parental responses and strategies.
They conducted a cross-sectional online survey in a nationally representative sample of 1,050 parents (67% female, 80% white) of children (aged 1-18 years, 51% female) in England in September 2025. Parents were recruited by Savanta, an online research panel aggregator, and received a fixed points-based incentive reward for participating.
Questions were developed from existing published measures with input from public contributors (adults living with obesity and young people) and refined through piloting.
Parents were asked about their demographics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity and education level) and socioeconomic status as well as their health and income. The parent survey included questions on pestering frequency and strategies, what in their opinion trigger pestering, their responses, and how these influence what they buy including whether it leads to unplanned purchases. Statistical analysis was used to identify differences by sociodemographic characteristics.
The power of pestering
The survey found that over half of parents (58%) reported that their child(ren) 'frequently' or 'always' request products when food shopping, just 4% said their child never makes requests.
Children of all ages made demands, but younger children (4-11 years) made significantly more requests than older children (12-18 years), and were three times more likely to pester than toddlers aged 1-3 years.
The research indicates socioeconomic differences, with parents experiencing food insecurity being 13% more likely to report more frequent child product requests.
Unsurprisingly, the most requested items were ice creams/lollies (45%), confectionery (43%), and sweets and biscuits (42%)—highlighting a key problem in that pestering rarely occurs over healthy foods.
Pestering strategies
Over half of parents reported children verbally asked for products, with one in five children using emotional tactics like nagging and tantrums. Around one in three children pestered by picking up items and placing them in the basket or trolley, while around one in six talked about a product display or in-store advert.
However, the findings revealed differences in the use of these strategies by children's age, ethnicity, and food insecurity. For example, older teens (aged 12-18 years) were significantly less likely to resort to nagging or tantrums and were significantly more likely to explicitly refer to instore or media adverts. White children were less likely to trolley load, and children from more food secure households were significantly more likely to use tantrums/nagging to pester their parents.
Product placement and advertising driving this behaviour
Product placement instore (e.g., products placed on low shelves at children's eye level or near checkouts) was the second most common reason parents reported for their child pestering (29%), after their child feeling hungry or craving foods (38%).
Additionally, one in four parents stated that seeing branded, child-friendly characters on packaging, or watching food adverts on TV or online before coming in store, was driving requests.
Almost all parents spent more than planned
Most parents said that they purchased the requested product 'sometimes' (47%) or most of the time (25%), with parents of older children (12-18 years) and those who were more food secure and less deprived more likely to give in to demands.
Almost all parents (91%) reported spending more than they planned to because of child requests.
Nearly a quarter (23%) of parents reported that requests made them feel upset, guilty, or distressed. Most parents (56%) thought that negotiating with children or making plans with a child before shopping (53%) were a good way to handle product requests.
"Children are highly susceptible to powerful and sophisticated marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages, and frequent exposure we observe prompts them to pester their parents, putting them at greater risk of developing overweight and obesity," said co-author Dr Magdalena Muc from the Open University, UK. "Concerningly, our findings suggest that it is the parents experiencing food insecurity who are pestered more frequently and it can be a real source of distress. We are currently running focus groups with children and parents to understand better their in-shop experiences and triggers of pestering behaviours."
The placement of HFSS products in key locations such as checkouts has been banned in most retailers since October 2022, and offers like 'buy one get one free' on unhealthy products has been restricted since October 2025. However, it is not yet known how well these rules are being adhered to or whether they have changed purchasing habits.
Although a junk food advertising ban on pre-watershed TV and online came into force in the UK in January 2026, the rules do not apply to outdoor sites including billboards and posters on bus shelters, advertisers' own social media accounts or adverts for brands—even those that are strongly associated with unhealthy food products.
According to Professor Boyland, "Our findings provide crucial new information on the scale, impact, and modifiable influences of child food requests that should help inform the design and evaluation of public health policies to protect children from relentless unhealthy food marketing and reduce childhood obesity and health inequalities"."
These are observational findings and the researchers acknowledge various limitations including that they cannot be generalised to all children and teenagers, and that they are based on a parent-reported survey of child pestering experiences that can result in problems of recall and bias, which could have affected the results. Finally, they note that the survey focused on take home grocery purchases and did not include purchases from fast-food outlets.
