Top Stories - Posted by Jim Barlow-Oregon on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 12:16 - 3 Comments 
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(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Kids go for brands with sugar, salt, fat
In a recent study, a group of preschoolers were shown 36 randomly sorted cards—12 related to each of two popular fast-food chains, six to each of the two leading cola companies, and six depicting irrelevant products. All children were able to correctly place some of the product cards with the correct companies, indicating their differing levels of brand recognition. (Credit: iStockphoto)
U. OREGON (US) — Preschoolers know what they like—sugar, salt, and fat—and they quickly figure out which brands will deliver the goods.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
In a study of preschoolers ages 3 to 5, involving two separate experiments, researchers confirm—what most parents already know—that salt, sugar, and fat are what kids most prefer. They also found that children could equate their taste preferences to brand-name fast-food and soda products. Details are reported in the journal Appetite.
In a world where salt, sugar, and fat have been repeatedly linked to obesity, waiting for children to begin school to learn how to make wise food choices is a poor decision, says T. Bettina Cornwell, a professor of marketing at the University of Oregon. Children even are turning to condiments to add these flavors—and with them calories—to be sure that the foods they eat match their taste preferences.
“Our findings present a public policy message,” Cornwell says. “If we want to pursue intervention, we probably need to start earlier.” Parents, she adds, need to seriously consider the types of foods they expose their young children to at home and in restaurants. “Repeated exposure builds taste preferences.”
In the first experiment, 67 children (31 boys, 36 girls) and their mothers were recruited from preschool classes in a large city. The mothers completed a 21-item survey to report on their taste preferences of their children. The children responded to their perceived tastiness of 11 natural and 11 flavor-added foods.
The photos of the foods were presented without labeling or packaging. Researchers found strong agreement in that both parental and children’s perceptions matched: Parents noted the desire for foods high in sugar, fat, and salt, while their children showed preference for flavor-added foods, which contained these ingredients.
Foods well within the preschoolers’ experience were presented in the experiment. Natural foods included apples, bananas, plain milk, fruit salad, water, green beans, and tomatoes (strawberries and watermelon were the top picks; flavor-added foods included such things as cheese puffs, corn chips, watermelon hard candy, jellybeans, banana soft candy, ketchup, colas, and chocolate milk (strawberry ice cream and jellybeans scored the highest).
In the second experiment, researchers explored the association of preschoolers’ palate preferences to their emerging awareness of brands of fast foods and sugar-sweetened beverages. Participating were 108 children (54 boys, 54 girls) from five urban preschools.
Each child was shown 36 randomly sorted cards—12 related to each of two popular fast-food chains, six to each of the two leading cola companies, and six depicting irrelevant products. All children were able to correctly place some of the product cards with the correct companies, indicating their differing levels of brand recognition. The findings show that children with higher preference for sugar, salt, and fat were very good at recognizing brands.
The researchers say the results suggests “that fast-food and soda brand knowledge is linked to the development of a preference for sugar, fat, and salt in food.” The relationships, they add, appear to reflect the children’s emotional experiences in a way that says the brand-named products deliver their developed taste preferences.
It may well be, Cornwall says, that when parents repeatedly serve certain foods, their children acquire a taste for them and soon recognized what brands deliver that taste. Earlier research has shown that children given red peppers on 10 different occasions will acquire a taste for red peppers and that logic extends to other foods. Children served French fries will, in turn, develop a preference for French fries.
Fighting childhood obesity, Cornwell says, should begin at home. First, families should focus on reducing the consumption of low-nutrient “junk” foods and replacing them with increased servings of healthy foods. Such an approach, the researchers noted in their conclusion, moves away from issues of weight and dieting—instead targeting the development of tastes preferences.
Anna McAlister, a consumer science researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was a coauthor on the study.
More news from the University of Oregon: http://uonews.uoregon.edu/
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3 Comments
Trish
Tanya
I think you’re confusing the two studies, Trish. In the second study the kids were not shown foods other than the fast food chains and soda companies. The first study presented photos of foods with no labeling or packaging.
My 21 month old son has never had fast food. I make all of his food except his crackers and now I have started allowing him to have Joe’s Os. I knew I didn’t want him craving sugar like I do and therefore we don’t give him sugar, we only use raw organic honey, fruit or pure maple syrup to sweeten anything he eats that needs to be sweetened. I am so glad this study came out and I hope parents pay attention!
My personal goal is for my son to not eat at a fast food restaurant until he’s old enough to drive himself there :) We’ll see if I make it!
Wendy
Trish, you have the two studies confused. With the non-branded foods, kids were telling the researchers how much they liked each one. That is how the researchers were able to learn how much they children like natural vs flavor-added foods. In the part where the researchers looked at brand knowledge, the kids essentially had to put together three collages. So when the researchers had mickey D’s and BK in the same batch of cards the hard part for the kids was that they needed to know which fries were McFries and which burger was BK and that sort of thing. The distracter cards are in there so that the kids have an extra thing to do during the task, but you’ve gotta admit it’s pretty impressive for a 3-yr-old to know the difference between Mc-products and BK products.
They were not asked if they wanted to eat the swim goggles… lol.
What were the “six irrelevant products” that they had to chose from? If you show a kid a non food item vs french fries he/she will of course want to eat the fries.
Also, how are kids to have brand recognition for something like a green bean or broccoli. I can’t even tell you what brand my broccoli is because it’s not packaged. I guess its store brand? Another thing, while I’m preparing dinner the kids aren’t allowed in the kitchen. They’re sent out to play. They can’t get brand recognition when they don’t see the green giant on the green bean can or the Tyson lable on the chicken.
My kids’ faces will always light up when I pull into Wendy’s but they light up just as much as when they come in to eat at home and I serve their favorite home made food (currently Chicken tacos). The difference is my food isn’t brand food, it’s home made and Mom’s home cooking doesn’t have a fancy lable to recognize.