Press Release

A quarter of American children are ‘dieting’

New research from one of America’s leading coupon code and voucher sites has revealed that a quarter of American children under the age 12 are on a diet. Furthermore, a fifth of parents admitted that they wouldn’t allow their kid to go Trick-or-Treating for fear of them eating ‘too much candy’.

New research has shown that a quarter of American parents have put their kids aged 12 or under on a diet. A further 19% of parents polled said that they would not allow their children to go ‘Trick-or-Treating’ this Halloween for fear of them eating too much candy.

The poll was conducted by one of America’s leading coupon code and voucher sites, www.CouponCodes4U.com, which wanted to investigate the attitudes of parents towards the food that their kids eat. As result the site polled 6,523 American parents with kids aged 12 or under to find out their thoughts on the subject.

When the site asked the question “what food do your kids generally eat the most?” only 24% stated ‘healthy food’, whilst a further 58% said ‘junk food’.

A quarter of parents, 26%, admitted that their child is on a diet, whilst a further 11% said that that they were currently ‘watching what their child ate’. When CouponCodes4U.com asked them to stipulate their reason for their child being on a diet, 6% said their child’s paediatrician had recommended it.

A fifth of the parents asked said they wouldn’t allow their child to go Trick-or-Treating for fear of them ‘eating too much candy’, whilst 41% insisted on giving their child a packed lunch for school instead of letting them eat in the cafeteria. When asked ‘why?’ 62% of these parents said it was to ‘keep track’ of what their child was eating.

Despite the fact that 26% of the respondents said their child was on a diet, only 11% said they made sure their child was exercising regularly. On a similar note, 19% admitted to having previously given their child a note to allow them to skip gym class.

Mark Pearson, Chairman of CouponCodes4U.com, had the following to say about the study;

“With Halloween very close now, we wanted to find out if parents would prevent their kids from going Trick-or-Treating, for whatever reason. The study actually found that more parents were concerned about their child eating too much candy on the night than them being safe, which is quite surprising.

“At CouponCodes4U.com, we have a range of Halloween related discounts and coupons for people to save money on items such as costumes, sweets and other related products. For anyone looking to save money on Halloween products, or indeed anything else, it’s definitely worth a look.”