Cartoons on Food Boxes Create Nagging Children

Aug. 16, 2011— -- It's a tried-and-true marketing method: Slap a famous cartoon on food boxes and odds are children will be more likely to seek the food out at the store. But research now suggests that silly cartoons appearing on food boxes may also determine whether children will pester their mothers to buy the food and also the level of nagging parents are likely to experience.

Researchers analyzed surveys and interviews from 64 mothers who had children between the ages of 3 and 5. The mothers were asked questions about family eating and shopping habits, their use of media and how they dealt with their children's nagging.

The study, published in the Journal of Children and Media, found that packaging, characters and commercials all contributed to whether children pestered their mothers. The children who watched more television commercials were more likely to nag for foods that included cartoons on the packaging, even if they didn't like the food, researchers said.

"She picks up the characters by osmosis," one mother who took part in the study said of her 4-year-old daughter.

The bind that many parents face is that many of the foods that advertise popular characters are oftentimes not healthy, said Dina Borzekowski, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-author of the study.

"We know marketing works, so the trick is to make it work for healthier products," said Borzekowski.

Another mother of a 4-year-old boy said, "It really became clear to me how much TV impacts his preferences when he asked me to go to Burger King and I said, 'Why Burger King?' and he replied he had seen it on TV."

While researchers did not cite specific packages, mothers who were interviewed said the characters or commercials that drew the most attention were Dora the Explorer, Elmo, Spongebob and Scooby Doo.

But the so-called "nag factor" didn't stop there. The children who watched the most commercial TV also engaged almost equally in different types of nagging -- juvenile nagging, nagging to test boundaries and manipulative nagging.