By Natalie Digate Muth, MD,
MPH, RD, FAAP
When my son turned 3, we took
a big gamble for his birthday “treat” at preschool. We didn’t bring cupcakes,
brownies, or cookies. We didn’t even bring 100% fruit popsicles or juice.
Instead, the night before his birthday my veggie-hating child and I sat down
together, cutting up pineapple, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes; arranging
blackberries, blueberries, and black olives; and generally having a great time
getting ready for his birthday together. I smiled big but secretly fretted. Was
I setting my son up to be the laughing stock of his preschool? Would he even
eat his own birthday snack?
Our concoction turned into a
beautiful array of Sesame Street characters – a blueberry and blackberry Cookie
Monster, pineapple Big Bird, cherry tomato Elmo, broccoli and olive Oscar the
Grouch. The experiment was a success. The three- and four-year-olds, my son
included, were eager to gobble up their Sesame Street friends. This test
capitalized on what even the most novice food marketers know well – the way to
a child’s mouth is through his heart – in particular with beloved characters,
sure to make any given food more exciting.
Unfortunately, this insight
typically goes towards marketing unhealthy food, with 98% of food ads for kids
consisting of pure junk. A recent report from Yale Rudd Center found that in
2012, the fast food industry spent $4.6 billion marketing mostly unhealthy
product to kids. Unlike other developed and wealthy nations, the U.S. has done
disgustingly little to regulate manipulative advertising to kids, and despite
bold promises to self-regulate, the food industry has done a lousy job.
In an effort to counter junk
food marketing, last month Let’s Move joined with Sesame Street to announce a campaign to promote fresh fruits
and vegetables to kids. Starting in mid-2014, the Produce Marketing Association
and its growers, suppliers, and retailers will get to use the Sesame Street
characters’ likeness to promote fresh fruits and vegetables!
My own mini-experiment and
real peer-reviewed research suggest that this strategy will work! For example,
one study showed that simply placing an Elmo
sticker on an apple doubled the number of kids who would choose an apple over
cookies. By rearranging vegetables and fruits in a way that appeals to kids’
imaginations, an “I-won’t-touch-anything-green” kid eagerly reached over to
take a bit of the dirty, grouchy, and oh-so-loveable broccoli Oscar at my son’s
birthday party.
As pediatricians and vocal
advocates in the media and online, we need to not only continue
to push for commonsense restrictions on advertising to kids and put pressure on
celebrities, corporations, and organizations who engage in tactics to get our
kids to prefer junk but also support efforts to promote healthy foods, such as Let's Move's partnership with Elmo and Rosita.
Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD, FAAP practices
general pediatrics at Pediatric Medical Associates in Vista, California and is
Healthcare Solutions Director at the American Council on Exercise. She is
author of the book “Eat Your Vegetables! and Other Mistakes Parents Make:
Redefining How to Raise Healthy Eaters” (Healthy Learning, 2012) which aims to
help empower parents to set their kids up for lifelong healthy habits, without
the mealtime battles.
