Are Cartoon Characters Making Children Fat?

Dora the Explorer is everywhere. My personal favorite marketing ploy is putting Dora on diapers. My child knows way too much about Dora and she doesn’t even know Dora has her own TV show. She’s that omnipresent. Now, it looks like Dora is making our kids fat. Well, maybe Dora isn’t alone.

Turns out that food labeled with cartoon characters “tastes” better to children, according to a new Yale University study. Maybe it’s the “I want it” factor, who knows? But, it’s safe to say that if a child sees a cartoon character that they know and love, said child is gonna want to leave the grocery store with WHATEVER that cartoon is hawking. And the child won’t even know why.

Sad.

While Dora has been seen on some healthy foods, the majority of the foods she promotes is junk food, along with all of her other cartoon cohorts. To me, this gives marketing a bad name – yes, we all know marketing is manipulative, but as adults we choose to be fooled…kind of. Kids, on the other hand, don’t know their strings are being pulled. The power of suggestion at work.

Like I said: sad.

As if getting our kids to eat healthy wasn’t hard enough.