Preschoolers in study liked food more if it had a Golden Arches wrapper
By LINDSEY TANNER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last updated August 6, 2007 11:45 p.m. PT
CHICAGO — Anything made by McDonald’s tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.
We really needed another study for this? I could have told you that after watching the Saturday morning cartoons and then taking a walk through the cereal isle of any grocery store to watch the ever popular, “can I please have this – I promise to clean my room” tantrum reenacted as children hold their favorite sugary sugar coated sugar pops infused with sugar and a little sugar on top cereal (tastes great with a little dab of honey).
Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the children when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.
I would just like to take this time to point out that the “familiar packaging” is only familiar if the child has seen it before. I’m thinking my house will have the Saturday morning Netflix cartoons just to avoid commercials.
The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald’s foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost.
“You see a McDonald’s label and kids start salivating,” said Diane Levin, a childhood development specialist who campaigns against advertising to children. She had no role in the research.Levin said it was “the first study I know of that has shown so simply and clearly what’s going on with (marketing to) young children.”
Dr. Tom Robinson of Stanford University, author of the study, said the children’s perception of taste was “physically altered by the branding.”
It wasn’t physically altered you dimwit (he must have watched too much ‘Baby Einstein’). Physically altering would require taste bud removal.
The study involved 63 low-income children ages 3 to 5 from Head Start centers in San Mateo County, Calif. Robinson believes the results would be similar for children from wealthier families.
True, but only if the children of wealthier families watched the same commercials. It’s possible that the wealthier kids have such a huge library of videos that they never watch TV in all its commercial glory.
The research, appearing in August’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, was funded by Stanford and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The study likely will stir more debate over the movement to restrict ads to children. It comes less than a month after 11 major food and drink companies, including McDonald’s, announced new curbs on marketing to children under 12.
McDonald’s says the only Happy Meals it will promote to young children will contain fruit and have fewer calories and less fat.
Adding fruit – Yay! Big plus. Unfortunately, they don’t say if it’s fresh fruit or dried fruit which is typically dried with fruit juice containing high fructose corn syrup. They also don’t mention how many calories or fat in the meals, but merely state that it’ll be less. Less than what? I have a small car – it weights less than an elephant. It’s a Hummer. You see how it’s all relative?
“We’ve always wanted to be part of the solution and we are providing solutions,” company spokesman Walt Riker said.
Translation: We see that people are going back to the 80′s trend of eating healthy and exercising so aside from offering diet coke and crappy salads we’re going to package carrots and apples with our trade mark and sell it with less freshness and higher prices than a grocery store now that it’s been kid tested and mom approved.
But Dr. Victor Strasburger, an author of an American Academy of Pediatrics policy urging limits on marketing to children, said the study shows too little is being done.
“It’s an amazing study and it’s very sad,” Strasburger said.
“Advertisers have tried to do exactly what this study is talking about — to brand younger and younger children, to instill in them an almost obsessional desire for a particular brand-name product,” he said.
Well Duh! They want money! Did he just wake up? It’s called CAPITALISM.
We parents have to take responsibility too if we take the quick and easy options of allowing too many fast food meals and giving in to our children’s demands for them. Macca’s was always a really special treat for my kids as was having soft drinks in the house. They were lured by the ads for sure but that only made the occasional treats all the more special.