Children have taken an increasingly important role in consumption-related family decision-making due to a growing influence and autonomy in choosing the products to be bought, and this has turned them into a market segment that has is increasingly aimed at by marketing strategies of manufacturing companies. This dynamics is particularly important in the children food market, in which needs of integrating the search for foods that are both considered healthy (by the parents) and seen as tasteful and valued by the children (often because of extrinsic attributes) have been established, even though they can be sometimes regarded as contradictory. This research has evidenced that the adoption of inadequate nutrition patterns have caused the emergence of new health problems in the Brazilian children population. This picture has become more serious due to an institutional context marked by the conflict between the food processing industry and public regulation institutions - particularly concerning the competence to rule food advertising aimed at this consumer segment. Far from this debate, companies that are leaders in the children food market, most of which are multinational, attempt to align their offer of healthier foods to children and adolescent consumers, thus meeting an inexorable trend in this industry. Therefore, it is unconceivable that the establishment of a strict, specific regulation of the information provided in the advertisement and publicity of children food by impartial public institutions, not only benefitting consumers, but also the companies that are concerned about assuring the good quality of their products, does not represent a common purpose of the food processing industry in Brazil.
food; child consumer; marketing