Peas, carrots, and everything in-between. Explore how to find realistic (and beautiful) images of kids’ food.
Why and how we eat food has changed dramatically over the past few decades, and the same goes for our kids. Rather than simply hitting all the checkmarks on whatever standard government food guide says, kids’ food is going through a revolutionary turn. Food education and food knowledge have never been more prevalent—whether that’s kids in home economics learning the basics on how to cook, or parents teaching tots on where food comes from and how it affects them. It’s not simply “eat your peas and carrots or you won’t watch TV.” It’s “Did you know your peas have more fiber than a slice of bread?” Thanks to the rise of food images on Instagram, food travel shows on Netflix, and the organic, farm-fresh movement, food education has never been more interesting for kids.
In today’s article, we’re sharing some tips on how to better search for and find realistic images of kids’ food that are nutritious, tasty, and celebrates critical thinking about our food decisions.
Explore the Kids’ Food Image Collection by Shutterstock.
Kids’ Food Around the World
Before we get started with some tips on how to find (really awesome) images of kids’ food, we wanted to go through a few common misconceptions about kids’ food. Shutterstock is a global marketplace, which means we have global clients that purchase and share images of kids’ food in their advertising. But, those images change drastically depending on where you are in the world. For example, what’s common “kids’ food” in Western countries isn’t the same in Asia or the Middle East.
Healthy Kids’ Food: Not a Western Trend
Whether it’s due to our (admitted) love of junk food or not, Western countries like the United States don’t have the healthiest diets. Where are the healthiest eaters? Mostly in Africa. Chad, Sierra Leone, and Mali top the three healthiest countries in the world. A lot of this is thanks to their reliance on local grains and produce—including, but not limited to, tomatoes, okra, onions, peanuts, and root vegetables. And, our kids are our first indication into what and why we put certain things in our bodies. Slow food, which is food cooked with intent and mostly with fresh, local ingredients, reigns prevalent in what most countries feed their kids. We love this project for Time magazine by photographer Gregg Segal, where he shares innovative images of what kids eat around the world.
Kids Eat Different Around the World
Kids’ food isn’t just a pureed mash of vegetables and protein. Around the world, kids’ food can look dramatically different compared to what our minds may think. An example of this diversity is in breakfast foods. In China, many children begin their day with a warm bowl of congee, which is a watery, rice porridge. However, in Guatemala, breakfast for kids in middle-class families includes tortillas, black beans, eggs, plantains, and a side of fresh fruit. In Vietnam, a popular kids’ breakfast favorite (which also happens to be one of my favorites) is phở, a flavorful noodle soup often served with beef and a combination of vegetables. This means that when you’re marketing kids’ food, you need to be cognizant of where in the world you’re marketing. Make sure the food you’re showing makes sense.
Example: Kids’ Food in France
French children are more likely than their American counterparts to eat a variety of foods. The French also limit snacks, and put a preference on appropriate portion controls. Portion control is a really important part of food photography, especially when showing kids’ meals. In French kids’ food, there’s a focus on whole foods and avoiding any quick eating or food on-the-go, using ingredients like cheese, yogurt, bread, fish, and meat, ending the meal with a dessert. Meals are often enjoyed in courses—and enjoyment is encouraged.
Example: Kids’ Food in Japan
Japanese breakfasts and desserts often look different for kids when compared to Western countries. While breakfasts can range from rolled omelets, miso soups, and porridge, desserts are a whole other ball game. Shown here is oshiruko, which is a traditional Japanese dessert consisting of a sweet porridge of azuki beans in a bowl of mochi. Not your average chocolate cake!
The Impact of Kids’ Food Marketing
Unfortunately, childhood obesity, which occurs when a child is above the normal or healthy weight, is a common issue in many Western countries. In the United States, about 14.4 million children and adolescents are affected by childhood obesity. The impact of advertising food images to children and their parents is substantial, and something that needs to be understood whenever an image is selected for use for these marketing purposes. Healthy kids’ food marketing needs to be more prevalent, showing appropriate portion sizes, food types, and eating scenarios that encourage healthy kids’ food consumption.
We have a few tips on how you can use kids’ food images on Shutterstock to market appropriately to both kids and parents.
- Avoid any references to body dissatisfaction and focus on weight-related concerns. Instead, images should be positive and encouraging.
- Market healthy food including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats according to governmental guidelines and health food trends in your geographical area.
- Encourage healthy eating habits through the images you share. This includes a greater consumption of healthy foods, physical activity, and eating local and market-fresh when possible.
- Kids’ food marketing also influences adult food marketing. If adults are shown in images, ensure they’re leading by example with healthy food habits.
How to Better Search for Kids’ Food Images
That brings us to our top tips and tricks on how customers can better find kids’ food images that are on-brand and positive on Shutterstock. Portraying kids’ food should include a focus on healthy, farm-fresh, and physically active lifestyles. Emphasize appropriate portion controls and realistic situations that both parents and kids can see themselves in. Here are five of our top tips on how to search and find kids’ food images on stock marketplaces.
Tip #1: Be Highly Specific
The more specific your search terms are, the more relevant the images will appear in your catalogue. When you’re looking for images of kids’ food, rather than focusing on that entire bucket of images, create a set of keywords that suit that marketing objective.
For example, let’s say you’re a grocery store chain looking for images of kids enjoying food. Here are a few keyword combinations you could use to find a variety of images.
- Kids eating breakfast with parents: Your specific keywords are the type of food and other people in the frame.
- Diverse kids eating together: Diversity is the goal of your specific keyword.
- Kids eating summer food outside: The time of year and destination are your specific keywords.
Next, use Shutterstock’s search bar to change your settings to find different geographic profiles. Whether you use the “Ethnicity” or “Age” filter, the term will completely change the type of images you are shown. This is a good way to denote that you’re looking for only images of kids, eliminating models from any other age range.
Tip #2: Search for Unique Food Item Combinations
Rather than just searching for generalized “kids’ food” images, search for specific items using ingredients that are commonly consumed by kids. Healthy produce is often one of the most popular items to show when depicting images of kids’ food. But, instead of just showing a plate of fresh fruits and vegetables, get creative and consider what type of recipes those ingredients can create. Plus, showing recipes or kids cooking or baking these items is a clever marketing tool to use, rather than just showing the final project. Here are a few examples.
Apples in Kids’ Food:
- Baked apple slices
- Apple crumble
- Applesauce muffins
Bananas in Kids’ Food:
- Healthy, grainy banana bread
- Banana pancakes
- Mashed banana with oatmeal
Strawberries in Kids’ Food
- Strawberry smoothies
- Lemonade with strawberries
- Strawberry frozen popsicles
The same kind of thinking can apply to any type of kids’ food including vegetables and protein dishes. Get creative with the type of food image you’re sharing for kids.
Tip #3: Search for Geographic Areas Specific to Where You’re Marketing
Adding specific geographical areas to your search term is another way to get specific images of kids eating food around the world. Again, rather than searching through thousands of generic pages of “kids eating food,” get specific. Here are a few examples of different search terms.
- [Insert Geographic Location] kids’ food
- [Insert Geographic Location] baby food
- Kids eating breakfast in [Insert Geographic Location]
Once you find images you like in certain profiles, like and save images of that model into a collection. You can do this by “hearting” the top right heart on the image and creating a new collection, or sharing the image to an existing one. That way, you can reference that model and shoot for future ideas. Chances are, if you liked the photographer’s work the first time, you’ll like more of their work in the future.
Tip #4: Finding Kids’ Food Images Not Typically “Stock”
Kids’ food imagery has the potential to look messy and out of place. But, there are a few tips and tricks to finding images that may be a perfect fit for your marketing campaigns. Often, our best photographers shoot in studio or have a similar pattern to how they capture their subjects. Finding natural-looking imagery that’s not “typical stock” is possible, it just takes a few tricks.
Trick #1: Search by Fresh Content
Fresh content is the freshest and newest content uploaded to Shutterstock. We typically organize the catalog by “Most relevant”—which is usually great imagery—but it’s often shot by our biggest creatives and agencies. They create the most often, so they show up more often. However, searching for fresh content is a fantastic way to find some new talent. This is also a handy tool to find more casual photographers who maybe create custom work outside of stock, and put some impressive work on Shutterstock to make some extra cash.
Be prepared to go through a lot of content. Once you find a photographer you like, look at the type of images they upload.
For example, this image was found by searching “fun kids’ food” on Fresh content. The photographer looked great, so we took a look at their whole collection where they had some other fantastic images we might not have discovered.
Trick #2: Try Vertical Orientation
Even if you don’t necessarily want to use a vertical image, try searching for this using the “Image type” filter. Often, pro photographers and agencies only shoot in horizontal format because it’s the most used by clients. However, a lot of photographers who are used to creating social media-ready imagery will shoot and upload in vertical orientation. Here’s an example of a kids’ food image found using that tool. Here you’ll be able to find similar, natural-looking images by browsing the rest of the photographer’s collection.
Tip #5: Use Shutterstock’s Curated Collections
Whether you don’t have time, or just want to select ready-made images for your marketing, Shutterstock’s Curated Collections is the best place to start. Curated internally by our art team, these are the top images on our marketplace, and usually the most natural, marketing-friendly images. Our team takes the guesswork out of searching for you and curates thousands of kids’ food images every day for you to use. Here’s some tricks for using curated collections.
Search Other Food Image Collections
Rather than try to find a category that perfectly matches the type of image you need, go to any curated collection and find an artist you like, then save their work. Because you’re looking for kids’ food images, we suggest starting with food collections. Chances are, if you like that image, you’ll probably like their other work. This is a crafty way to start saving artists to use in the future, so you don’t have to find them over and over again.
Explore more curated images for kids’ food:
For more on food and food imagery, take a look at these articles:
Top Image by Tatevosian Yana.
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