Cartoon characters tilt kids’ food choices toward junk food
Related: Cartoon, characters, choices, Food & Drink, junk food, kids
Kids are easily swayed. That’s why kids think that snacks taste better when popular cartoon characters like Shrek and Dora the Explorer are plastered on the packages. I think we all know that.
Nutrition experts have long argued that such images shouldn’t be used to market junk food to kids, especially with the childhood obesity epidemic.
Recently, researchers at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity gave 40 children, ages 4 to 6, three identical pairs of snacks: graham crackers, gummy fruit and carrots. One package of each food had a cartoon character: Scooby-Doo, Dora the Explorer or Shrek. The other was plain. Children were asked if the foods tasted the same or if one tasted better.
More than two-thirds said they would choose the snack with the character on the package and about half of the kids said the foods tasted better from packages with the cartoon characters.
Last Updated on June 23rd, 2010
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