• Hartford Courant, Tuesday, June 22, 2010 9:41 AM

Arielle Levin Becker reports that there's nothing existential about the impact of cartoon characters on children's attitudes toward the food they eat. It's quite cut and dried, in fact: Researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University find that putting characters such as Dora the Explorer or Scooby Doo on food packaging can make children think the food inside tastes better than the same food packaged without the characters.

Forty children aged 3 to 6 were each given two samples of graham crackers, gummy fruit snacks and baby carrots. They were asked whether the two samples tasted the same, or whether one tasted better. The majority said that the food with the character on the package tasted better and that they would pick it for a snack, but the advantage was less strong for carrots.

"To me, what this shows is that the influence of characters is really so powerful, they're powerful enough to actually have kids think that the food tastes better and that they want to choose it for snacks," says Christina Roberto, a graduate student at the Rudd Center and lead author of the study. The authors suggest that the use of licensed characters on junk food packaging be restricted.

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