McDonald’s advertises a lot, so they’re probably pleased as punch by some current studies showing that, for kids, the branding on McFood is more important than the food itself.
Almost 77 percent, for example, thought that McDonald’s french fries served in a McDonald’s bag tasted better, compared with 13 percent who liked the fries in a plain white bag. Apparently carrots, too, taste better if they are served on paper with the McDonald’s name on it. More than 54 percent preferred them, compared with 23 percent each for those who liked the unbranded carrots and those who thought they tasted the same.
Interestingly, there’s very little difference in preference for the burgers.
McD’s responds by noting that they’re doing a positive public service by branding/pushing milk and fruit and veggies — which, I suppose, is true. And Katherine definitely enjoys getting apples sometimes instead of fries.
Now, is this brainwashing? Are kids being turned into McZombies? Well, that’s part of the point of advertising. But a couple of thoughts:
- Kids may also like the other associations of the brand — e.g., associating McFood with a Play Place. Katherine, for example, likes McDs “better” than some other fast food because of just that factor.
- Adults associate certain situational, non-substantive factors in eating, too. The same meal served at the chi-chi bistro down the street will “taste” different than if served on plain paper plates in a white lab room.
Of course, some Food Nannies suggest that Something Must Be Done:
But Dr. Thomas N. Robinson, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford and the lead researcher on the study, was not impressed. “The best response the fast-food industry could make to this information,” he said, “is to alter their menus to include a majority of healthful foods instead of encouraging consumption of high-fat, high-calorie foods.”
Except that’s what people want.
And note, of course, the study is for kids ages 3-5. Note that these kids aren’t going to McDonald’s on their own, but are being brought by parents or guardians. If you don’t think kids should be eating the stuff, don’t take them there. Parents should be more responsible, right?
“We often hear that parents are the ones responsible for their kids’ nutrition,” Dr. Robinson said, “but in reality there are these other factors, created by a tremendous amount of advertising effort, that undermine parents’ ability to make healthy choices.”
Riiiight. Okay, I have a kid. I know the temptations of giving in when she begs and yells for McDonald’s … or candy … or something else not as healthy as I’d like.
But do I consider McDonald’s undermining me? Is it reducing my ability to make “healthy choices?” Feh. If I can’t resist a Katherine begging me for all the french fries she can eat from McD’s, I shouldn’t have had her in the first place.
This study is interesting — heck, it should even be something that parents should know about. But let’s be sure we’re clear here — what food is bought for a kid is the ultimate responsibility of the parents. It’s certainly a responsibility I feel with my own daughter.
(via Les)
Right there with you. I’ve always been one of those people who insist that parents take responsibility for their decisions (or lack thereof) about a healthy diet.
The question of responsible advertising is clouded for me, because, as a parent, I believe it’s my responsiblity to not only monitor what my child watches on tv, but to discuss with him (as we’ve done since he was very young) how to separate what advertising tries to tell us from what reality truly is. Kids are always going to gravitate toward adverstising geared to them (just like the rest of us adults who are likely to see something on tv and go “Oooh!”), but it’s important for parents to recognize the necessity of teaching them (according to whatever age and understanding they’re currently at, of course) to identify the difference between need and want.
I just hope I’m doing a decent job of that myself.
P.S. – If this is less than coherant, I apologize.
I see this as more an indication that kids don’t like unfamiliar food. Every parent know that kids prefer the known to the unknown when it comes to food. Put food in front of a kid in a plain white wrapper and suddenly it is *unknown* *foreign* *yucky*
This study shows that McD is familiar and therefore tastes better. This is the same reason they do blinded taste test with Cola etc. People don’t like change.
Margie mentioned this as soon as I told her about the article. It’s a brilliant explanation. I insisted she comment with it.
I’m sorry. I was making comment on the second part where he was disagreeing with the critic. No argument with you on the unfamiliar thing at all.
No, that’s cool, weren’t disagreeing with you.
There are commercials that I find manipulative (and/or annoying), but I’d rather generally fight those by raising good consumers than lambaste the advertisers. There are limits to that, but I think your point about engaging with kids about the adverts they see is a fine idea.
Agreed. 🙂
I don’t care what other parents tell me. Just as Dave said, what your child eats is the responsibility of the parent. One thing I will never feed them is McDonalds or any fast food. I despise Fast Food, and I don’t want my child growing up on it.
I could see myself using something sugary as a reward, but that’s about it. I would want my child to be open minded, willing to try new things and not be picky, and to learn healthy habits. It’s something that really could have helped me.
And yes I think I would tend to agree with Margie, people don’t like the unfamiliar. But this is still something that can be attempted to be weeded out of the kid. Teach them to try new things.
Something heard around our dinner table often is “Try it at least once. Twice if it’s been a while.” It seems to help a little.
My son’s always been a finicky eater though. For him, it hasn’t been about dressing it up or packaging so much. For instance, sometimes, we wonder if he’s going to end up an outright vegetarian, because he goes through definite phases of disinterest in any kind of meat. He’ll eat the vegetable, the pasta or rice, etc., but shun the meat. Then, other times, it’s all about how wonderful my chicken tastes when it’s actually…a pork chop.
I agree that it’s the responsibility of the parent, but in some cases, fast food is something of a necessary evil. There have been times where no one in my household is capable of getting a decent dinner on the table, and stopping at McD’s or whatever on the way home is at least going to make sure there’s a dinner of some kind. It’s not something that happens a lot at my house, but it happens.
Or pizza happens.
Damn funny. 😀
Yeah, but don’t let him catch ya laughing at him! All those brains and no sense of humor about himself yet. 😛
Dang, I knew I hit that button too soon!
Wanted to add that you should hear Steve tease him on occassion when there’s actually chicken on the menu.
Caedyn: Mmm! This is great!
Steve: Tastes like chicken, huh?
Pizza happens! (Perfect)
I am torn with advertising to kids. The parent in me wants to ban it all, but I don’t think that is realistic in our consumer driven world. I do make a point of patronizing commercial free kid TV channels with the occasional dip into Cartoon Network and such. We rarely watch live TV and encourage Kitten to FF through the commercial.
On a side note, most young kids start out as mostly vegetarian. The taste for meat comes as they grow up. Apparently it is mostly a texture thing. Kids will begin liking things like tofu, then move onto shrimp and chicken and finally beef and pork. Kitten loves small bay shrimp but often turns her nose up at large shrimp. She loves it when I order lobster so she can suck the meat out of the small legs – go figure.
Teaching kids to try new things is a great goal. We work hard on that with Kitten. It is a balance. Kids need routine. It helps them feel secure and allows them the confidence to become independent. Food is part of that routine. With Kitten we try to set expectations. At one class of restaurant we may suggest venturing out but allow her to order mac & cheese if that is what she wants. Other places we may have her order a new/difference appetizer or soup and comfort food for the entry. At home, dinner is dinner; you eat what everyone else is eating. Because we take her to a variety of restaurants, not just “family” places, she does great even in the fanciest establishments.
I think it’s great that you lean towards commercial free tv. We’re not a cable family, so if the tv’s on, it’s broadcast or video/dvd. It was easier when he was younger, because PBS was where all our “favorite” shows were. On the other hand, the tv wasn’t on all that often until this last summer, and even now, the PS2 or computer will beat out the tv every time.
We were never really able to eat out all that often with Caedyn, but I think the way you approach it with Kitten is wonderful. When he was younger, I would sometimes allow room in the grocery shopping for a Kid Cuisine or something of that ilk to give him an ‘opt-out’ of a sort for his more finicky nights when steak or something he deemed “too spicy” was on the table. It was a compromise I could live with: He got to choose one night in 7 when he could use his ‘opt-out’, and somehow, that made it easier to get him to eat the other 6.
That got discarded eventually, though, as his tastes and apetite changed, and he now eats what we do every night. I think it’s also a matter of what works for the child in question. He’s always had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and learning to work with that has been new territory for me. I used to think I was pretty easy to get along with before he came into my life. 😛
That must be one hell of a pork chop! Most chops I’ve had/made have been wayyyyyyy too dry to taste like chicken 🙁
That’s a fantastic idea! Allowing for comprises sure helps maintaining any system.
Try brining it. Works wonders.
Or, alternately, use lots of A-1 Sauce. (That’s how I did it as a kid.)
OTOH, I’ve tasted some pretty dry chicken, too. 🙂
Ya’ll have definitely never eaten in the south. 😛
People may not like change, but some people do like a variety of foods (like me) and others do not. Some lack of variety may be related to being a ‘super’ or ‘under’ taster (there’s a whole group of people who can’t do the cruciferous vegetables), but I do belive taste buds are like muscles – if they don’t get used they get lost.
Also, as well as familiarity, the McD’s wrapper are associated with pleasurable experiences (usually) and therefore may make kids “feel” happier and then report that the food tastes better. Our brains make these types of connections all the time without our conscious effort.
I agree — folks become used to diverse foods by eating diverse foods. That includes kids. (There’s some evidence that includes getting an early initiation to diverse tastes through breast milk — and some evidence that “bottle babies” tend to be more finicky eaters.)
When I was about 10, I had a seriously bad hamburger at McD’s. This was at a time when my family and I lived outside the USA, so we didn’t get hamburgers very often. For this reason, they were a rare treat. For me to say that one was bad suggests to me that it was seriously bad. Since then, I’ve never liked McD’s. So the associations Mary mentions can go both ways. Since I don’t remember what I thought about McD’s before this event, I don’t know if my associations with McD’s beforehand were pleasurable or not, but assuming they were somewhat pleasurable, a bad experience can turn on off easily.
I think it’s harder for a food to gain a kid’s trust than it is for that trust to be destroyed because it takes multiple exposures for some tastes to be acquired, while just one bad experience can ruin a food forever. Even adults often say that they have a hard time eating something if it made them sick once, and even adults are disposed not to return to a restaurant once they have been made sick by the food there.
I think there’s a psychological and physiological bias toward familiar foods and away from strange and unfamiliar foods. This makes a kind of evolutionary sense, and might even explain why children are more particular than adults. A child can be more seriously harmed than an adult by eating a toxic food because a child has a smaller body and because their body is not fully mature.
So I think that people who like to try new foods have learned this behavior and that it is somewhat contrary to our natural inclination. I think one reason the advertising is so effective is that it fools us into thinking that a food is more familiar than it really is.
And, of course, this is all complicated by how hungry we are. People will try lots of things they wouldn’t normally try if they are starving.
I’m one of the finicky ones. It’s like I’m still six years old. I can’t eat green vegetables, or meats that aren’t ground and well done, or seafood, or Asian or Mexican food (or most other ethnicities), or anything bitter (like tea, coffee, or dark chocolate).
David: You’re correct. In the course of two weeks, Margie and I both got sick associated with different restaurants. That was about 3-4 mos. ago, and I am only now beginning to be at all interested in returning to the one that I think I got ill at, even though it was a favorite of mine.
The same pattern holds true elsewhere — there’s a rule of thumb that it takes 7-8 good experiences at a place of business to make up for 1 bad experience.
Avo: De gustibus non disputandum.