Adopt Junk Food Marketing to Promote Healthy Food Habits in Children

Superheroes and other popular characters can help children make healthy choices.

Investigators from Cornell University examined the popular trick adopted by a majority of junk food companies, using characters admired by the children to promote their unhealthy food, and found the method equally effective for making children eat nutritious food.

"Nutritionists and school lunch planners can turn the tables on children's poor eating habits by adopting the same 'branding' tactic used by junk food marketers," lead author Brian Wansik, professor of marketing at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University said in a statement.

To examine whether the popular cartoon characters have the power to make children choose more healthy foods, children were provided with two food choices: apples branded with stickers of the popular character Elmo and cookies. Wansik and colleagues found the presence of the cartoon character influenced children to choose the healthy apple.

"Branding has tremendous potential to promote healthier eating," Wansik said. "We tend to associate mascots and characters with junk food, but they can also be used to build excitement around healthy foods. This is a powerful lesson for fast food companies, food activists and people involved in school food service."

Results of the study titled "Can Branding Improve School Lunches?" have been published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Like popular characters, offering toys with healthier kiddie meals also has shown the power to make children choose a healthy meal. A study conducted by a team of Canadian researchers from University of Waterloo found children ready to sacrifice their favorite fries and coke for healthier happy meal like apple slices and caramel sauce when toys were offered only with them.

According to another study from Cornell's Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, presence of healthier food items can influence children to make more healthy choices.

They found the mere presence of healthy food like a whole fruit, included in the meal making children to go for more healthy choices, on the other hand applesauce and fruit cocktail leading them to go after unhealthy food items like cookies and ice cream bars.