Our blog covers all things related to motherhood and families, which includes the politics of food. The results of a recent study revealed that children prefer food if it's in a McDonald's wrapper, even if it's carrots. Here's a summary of the findings:
"By the early age of 3 to 5 years, low-income preschool children preferred the tastes of foods and drinks if they thought they were from McDonald’s, demonstrating that brand identity can influence young children's taste perceptions. This was true even for carrots, a food that was not marketed by or available from McDonald’s. These taste preferences emerged despite the fact that 3 of the foods were from McDonald's and only the branding was changed, indicating that the effects were not due to familiarity with the taste or smell of McDonald's food. Even the children with the lowest frequency of eating food from McDonald's had average positive total preference scores, indicating they preferred more of the branded foods ."
You can read the full report from the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/161/8/792?tr=y&auid=2909446.
The sad thing is that I'm not even surprised. Over three years of coordinating a childhood obesity prevention program showed me how far and deep the work needs to go to completely change the youth food culture of this country.
What do you think?
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1 comment:
Um, I don't know about kids, but every time I pass the big yellow "M," I drool like a Pavlovian beagle. It's something I battle every single day. No joke.
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