Popular caricature characters compatible as Shrek, SpongeBob, Dora the Frontiersman are attracting kids to junk food. Parents have to remember that healthy food choices start with greenness. Researchers fashion that the branding of American food product packaging with characters allied as Dora the Explorer drives preschoolers to choose higher - calorie, less propitious foods over more nutritious options.
The findings, reported online June 21 in Pediatrics, give forth on the food preferences of 4 - to 6 - year - old boys and girls who father foods tastier when the packaging gore the likenesses of lover TV and movie characters.
Fifty percent of children say that food from a container decorated with a parody celebrity homologous as Shrek tastes better than the identical exact food from a plain package, according to a new study.
The use of TV and movie characters on food packaging is " designed to access certain emotions, memories, and associations, " says Dr. Thomas Robinson, M. D., a professor of child health at the Stanford University School of Medicine. " If you associate certain products with things that are unequal considered fun, it ' s going to make those products seem more sterling.
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Cartoon characters nurse to appear on junk food, which makes health experts even more concerned about the magnetic effect they have on kids. Although characters such as Dora and SpongeBob SquarePants have been used to market fruits and vegetables, they are most often used on chips, candy, and other unhealthy snacks.
" Parents may not set out to buy unhealthy products, " says the lead author of the study, Christina Roberto, M. S., a doctoral student at Yale University ' s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, in New Haven, Connecticut. " But kids can be really, really persuasive. They see them and they want them, and it gets difficult to have that battle in the grocery store. "
So parents, you need to think twice before buying food for your kids and remember healthy choices start at an early age!
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