Cartoon Characters Are Making Your Kids Fat

If you've ever been to the grocery store or a fast food restaurant with a young kid, you already know they're more likely to go for the food with Shrek, Dora the Explorer, or any other cartoon character on the packaging. That shouldn't be news to most people. But researchers at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity decided to take it a step further and find out whether kids think that food advertised by a cartoon character actually tastes better. Turns out, they do.

The researchers found that an overwhelming majority of kids in the study — 85 percent — chose snacks with a cartoon character on the packaging over an identical snack with unadorned packaging. And the real kicker: About 55 percent of the kids said the cartoon-decorated snacks actually tasted better. What the researchers found interesting, however, was that a cartoon character was less likely to influence a child's opinion on a healthy snack than a sugary junk food. Hmm ... I guess that explains why I haven't seen more of those Spongebob Squarepants carrot packages lining grocery store shelves.

Christina Roberto, lead author of the study, commented that "the food industry spends $1.6 billion on youth-targeted marketing and, of that, 13 percent is dedicated to character licensing and cross promoting." The food industry knows kids think this way, and it's amazing it's taking everyone else so long to understand it.

If this sounds familiar, it's similar to a campaign to retire Ronald McDonald from his job of hawking junk food to kids. Although this study only focused on cartoon characters, not mascots, it's not difficult to imagine the results would be the same. I've written previously that the American Academy of Pediatrics states that "advertising directed toward children is inherently deceptive and exploits children under eight years of age." The American Psychological Association and numerous other organizations agree, and believe that marketing of food products towards young children should be eliminated.

I know what the naysayers are going to say: it's the parent's responsibility -- if a parent can't say no to a box of cereal, they've got more problems coming. Sure, but why do we choose to excuse the deceptive marketing practices of billion-dollar corporations over the interests of kids and parents? Parents need to make smart choices, but we don't need to deliberately make it harder for them. No one's saying you can't buy your kid a sugary breakfast cereal (though you probably shouldn't), but let's at least level the playing field by eliminating deceptive marketing directed at kids. And for a picture that really is worth a thousand words on this topic, just take another look at the one above.

Photo credit: dno1967