Perhaps this is a rhetorical question. But do we have a problem when young children come to believe that one chicken nugget they’re told comes from McDonald’s tastes better than an identical, but un-branded chicken nugget?
That is just one of the issues raised in a new study published in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Asked to sample identical pairs of McDonald’s menu items, researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital found that 63 California kids between ages 3 and 5 overwhelmingly preferred the taste of the food identified with the Golden Arches, versus unmarked paper wrapping.
A Stanford news release argues the study “shows that even young children are swayed by brand preferences. The results are likely to fuel more debate over a growing movement to restrict marketing to kids under 8 years old.”
“Numerous studies have shown that young children are unable to understand that advertising, product placement and co-branding with popular toys are meant to get them to choose one product over another,” said one researcher. “For them, ‘truth in advertising’ has a very literal meaning.”
The study was funded by Stanford’s Department of Pediatrics, the Stanford Prevention Research Center and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award.
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- News release with plenty of links: Old McDonald's has a hold on kids' taste buds, Stanford/Packard study finds
