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Want kids to eat more fruits and vegetables? It’s all about cartoon marketing

Look, we all know that kids today are a little on the plump side.

They don’t like to exercise, they don’t like to eat anything but fast food.

Blame it on MTV, video games, and Ronald McDonald.

But there’s a reason for it – and it may have something to do with the same reason that Sugar Smacks had to be changed to just Smacks on the cereal aisle.

Banana Stickers
Banana Stickers

It turns out that there’s a reason that the cereal aisle is loaded with cartoon characters promoting how their brand of cereal is just one part of this balanced, nutritious breakfast… and there is also a reason that kids are only eating the cereal and avoiding the more healthy portions of that meal:

It’s all about the cartoon characters.

How do we know?  It’s because researchers have discovered that merely placing a cartoon character sticker on a banana or apple can make those products more desirable to kids than a cookie.

In the study, children were allowed to select either an apple or a cookie with their lunchtime meal.  Parents everywhere wouldn’t be surprised to know that 91% of the time, kids selected a cookie.

But when a cute cartoon sticker was placed on the fruit, the researchers found that 37% chose the fruit over the cookie.

Marketing works, folks.  Think of how you can use this knowledge to your benefit as you pack up that healthy brown sack for your kids to take to lunch each day.  Stickers are really cheap at the store – plastering them all over healthy food may be just the ticket to getting your kids to start down the road of healthier eating.