Researchers from Yale University announced today that kids think food tastes better when its marketed with a cartoon. They asked 40 kids to try some gummy fruit snacks, graham crackers and baby carrots.
One bite came from a unmarked package and the other from one with Dora the Explorer, Shrek or a Scooby Doo on it. Despite the fact that the food was the same, the kids consistently said the one with the cartoon character tasted better.
Oddly the effect was more pronounced on foods like graham crackers and less so on carrots.
From ABCNews:
But researchers were surprised to find cartoons didn’t have as much of an effect on the children’s taste for carrots. Only 50 percent of children thought carrots tasted better from a cartoon-decorated package.
“Overall we expected to see more,” said Roberto.
A carrot is a carrot, we suppose.
Influence of Licensed Characters on Children’s Taste and Snack Preferences [Pediatrics]
Kids Think Food Tastes Better From Cartooned Packages [ABCNews]
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Now with more placebo!
Sad, but if it gets them eating their greens it can only be a good thing.
And food tastes better on a nice plate than in fast food packaging, yes.
That’s odd. When I see food marketed to kids with cartoons on the packaging, I assume it’s going to taste like rubbish.
Yeah, but you’re not a kid
I liked reading the studies on colors and how they affect our moods.
Brighter colors like orange and yellow tend to stimulate hunger. Maybe it’s a mixture of a friendly cartoon face drawn with bright colors.
Put a cartoon with deep crimson, black and grey colors – you may not get the same result.
Wonder how “Emily the Strange” baby carrots would sell. Just the thought makes me smile: “Emo Veggies”…
+1
Wow… kids are susceptible to branding? Shocker.
Now excuse me while I go buy my marked up name brand headache meds instead of the generic with the same ingredients.
The same psycology works on adults, too. Just check out Penn & Tellers “Fast Food” episode from a few nights ago.
People who though they were eating soup from an “expensive bistro” thought it tasted better than anything they ever tasted, yet it was made by KFC.
They took 2 halves of the same banana, told everyone that one of them was “organic” and the other wasn’t, and everyone thought the “organic” one tasted better.. etc..
It’s all psycological.
And this is different from parents making faces on desired foods because….? I was coaxed into eating my first broccoli when my grandma made a little broccoli forest in my mashed potatoes. And Popeye is the reason I am a spinach eater to this day.
If it looks better, we think it tastes better. And to kids, Dora looks awesome. So carrots that she’s on must be better.
Personally, I only eat shark-fin if there is a picture of Jabberjaw on the package…
Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk
Well this is news! Apparently kids aren’t as smart as their parents think they are!
We didn’t have a choice when we were kids. Mom got all our staples at Aldi and the only cereals I were allowed were healthy ones. My favorite cereal is still Quaker Oat Squares. Everything was a generic, so I never understood why my friends would only eat their Barney fruit snacks or whatever. We just had knock off dinos and sharks!
That should be WAS allowed. Sorry.
A good example is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese- Its not that I like the Cartoon macaroni shapes because they “taste better.” I like them because theres more places for the lab created cheese sauce to hide.
I agree, although the whole grain scooby doo isn’t as tasty.
Those novelty boxes of Kraft have less in them for the same price, though.
For me, this is a great thing. My kid doesn’t eat and is underweight and so every calorie counts. I got a box of Toy Story Kraft Mac& cheese. Instead of ignoring it like every other time I make mac & cheese (and I’ve made it every possible way), she ate 2 servings. This also works on all kinds of food, but that was the biggest surprise for me.
For Mac and Cheese in particular, see jackinthegreen11′s comment just above yours.
Shapes genuinely do taste better, because they hold more cheese sauce per noodle.
What happened to making kids sit at the table until they clean their plate regardless of what time it was or how cold the food got. It always got me to eat as a kid and everyone else I know it worked for too.
That’s a fantastic idea. I’ll make a child too small to understand stay seated for hours just to make a point.
Maybe if they put pictures of supermodels or centerfold models on adult food we would buy it.
Kind of like when people insist that organic fruits and vegetables taste better – and then you put them side by side with non-organic in a blind taste test and the majority of people pick the non-organic to be tastier.
This is why I only buy fun shaped fruit snacks.