Designing Children’s Design Workshops

Childhood obesity has emerged as a serious public health issue worldwide. Design workshops for children provide opportunities to identify problems and explore solutions; however, workshops specifically aimed at promoting healthy snack consumption have not yet been attempted. This study therefore sought to assess the demand for children’s design workshops, determine parents’ preferred formats for such workshops, and explore how workshop activities vary according to parenting styles related to children’s snack consumption. Data were collected via an online survey of 103 parents with children aged 6 to 12 years. Of these, 81 (78.6%) responded positively to the idea of children’s design workshops. Parenting styles in relation to snacking were categorized into four types, with workshop activity preferences showing strong associations with each type. Parent Type A was highly associated with six activities (design thinking/creativity, knowledge acquisition, problem understanding, problem-solving, strategy/experience sharing, and education). Parent Type B was also highly associated with six activities (design thinking/creativity, knowledge acquisition, problem-solving, strategy/experience sharing, design case exploration, and education). Parent Type C was strongly associated with only one activity (discussion/debate), while Parent Type D showed no significant association with any workshop activity. It was concluded that there is a high demand for design workshops that could help promote healthy snacking habits in children. Additionally, this study is significant in exploring the correlation between parent types and workshop activities in the development of children’s design workshop programs.