Mcwilliams, James. (2010, July 22).

¶ … McWilliams, James. (2010, July 22). What we know, and don't know about children and junk food. The New York Times. Retrieved August 2, 2010 at http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/what-we-know-and-dont-about-children-and-junk-food/?scp=2&sq=childhood obesity&st=cse

News article review

McWilliams, James. (2010, July 22). What we know, and don't know about children and junk food. The New York Times. Retrieved August 2, 2010 at http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/what-we-know-and-dont-about-children-and-junk-food/?scp=2&sq=childhood obesity&st=cse

Many parents believe that their children's food preferences are dramatically affected by the media as well as the taste of the foods their sons and daughters consume. Recent research seems to support this idea. The New York Times Freakanomics columnist James McWilliams chronicles the findings of a study of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity in which 40 children, between the ages of four to six, were offered "identical graham crackers, gummy fruits, and carrots. One sample came in a package decorated with Scooby Doo, Dora the Explorer, or Shrek. The other had plain packaging. Despite the fact that the food choices were identical, the majority of the kids chose the snacks with the cartoon labeling. Most of them also said that the snacks with the cartoon character tasted better -- except, of course for the carrots" (McWilliams 2010). The extent to which children can be influenced by television advertisements regarding non-nutritious snacks has caused many government officials and parents alike to consider regulating food-related advertisements explicitly directed at children.

It should be noted that even adults can be affected by the ambiance of a restaurant, or take-out food packaging, both of which can make the food seem to taste 'better.' If taste alone was important, no one would eat off of fine china or decorate birthday cakes. Furthermore, as McWilliams points out, although cartoon characters might act as an incentive to purchase specific items when the two items being compared are the same in terms of taste, children often have a natural predilection for sweet foods. Arguably, corporate marketers exploit this fact with far more devastating effects upon children's weight. The children in the study seemed less influenced by the use of marketing regarding the carrots than the sweeter treats, and were uniformly less interested in the vegetables. This indicates that media influence alone is not to blame for the expansion of children's waistlines: the heightened sugar content of all processed foods may also be a factor. The question as to what is more influential in affecting children's predilections for unhealthy food -- taste or packaging -- would be more useful to explore, but was not fully brought to light within the construct of the study, given that children were offered an choice between two identical assortments of sweet treats and vegetables at the same time.

The focus on cartoons advertising children's food is a distraction, says McWilliams, from the more difficult-to-control pressures that do influence childhood obesity. Parents that can afford healthy foods and parents that have the time and the energy to ensure their children have safe places to exercise tend to have slimmer children. It is easier to ban cartoon advertising for cookies, politically, then to end subsidizes to industrialized farms that make cheap, sweet corn syrup used in processed snack foods and to make urban areas safe places to play. McWilliams uses his own family as an unscientific sampling of children who love junk food, but because of parental guidance, availability of outdoor pursuits, and a parentally-enforced balanced diet are not obese.