Food Fight
NBC Dateline had a segment last night called Food Fight. They were talking about obesity and food companies selling food and marketing food to children. They did a focus study with 3 and 4 year olds to determine the effect marketing has on young children.
First they offered the children cupcakes with either the American Flag or a picture of Spiderman or SpongeBob. The children always picked the SpiderMan or SpongeBob cupcake. Then they offered the children a plain cupcake or a banana covered with "spokes-character" stickers. Every single kid picked the banana?!?!?!?
The piece de resistance was when they showed a plain banana or a ROCK covered with stickers and asked "which would you rather have for breakfast?" The kids amazingly picked the rocks. The adult kept saying "which would you want for BREAKFAST?" and the kids always picked the rocks.
Don't underestimate the power that marketing has on your decision making capabilities. The cards are so stacked against us for making "good" nutritional decisions.
posted by KarstensRage @ 11:27 AM
4 Comments:
These kids clearly know that breakfast is for chumps. Who needs it? Besides, you could totally trade an awesome sticker-covered rock for like a million bananas. And a hostess cream pie, the most coveted of all lunch room treasures.
Not many of the three-and-four-year-olds I know can understand a question like "Which one do you want for breakfast?". I think these kids are simply picking the one that's most pleasing to them as a toy or decoration. Will it occur to any three-year-old that he would be denied real food for breakfast? The question they are posed is so nonsensical that the kids are probably ignoring the "for breakfast" part, because they don't understand it.
damn, i thought you said a hostess covered in cream pie, that'd be my choice
Are these the kids that grow up and wear t-shirts with big corporate logos as fashion statements?
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