Study: Food in McDonald’s Wrapper Tastes Better to Kids

Are our kids being targeted?

Study: Food in McDonald’s Wrapper Tastes Better to Kids August 7th, 2007
Via: CNN:
Anything made by McDonald’s tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.
In comparing identical McDonald’s foods in name-brand and plain wrappers, the unmarked foods always lost.
Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.
The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald’s foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.
“You see a McDonald’s label and kids start salivating,” said Diane Levin, a childhood development specialist who campaigns against advertising to kids. She had no role in the research.
Levin said it was “the first study I know of that has shown so simply and clearly what’s going on with (marketing to) young children.”
Study author Dr. Tom Robinson said the kids’ perception of taste was “physically altered by the branding.” The Stanford University researcher said it was remarkable how children so young were already so influenced by advertising.