Mascots like Tony the Tiger are swaying kids to eat junk food, putting health ‘at risk’
Global News
Researchers say cartoon characters like Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy and the popular Paw Patrol squad are helping promote unhealthy eating habits in Canadian children.
Junk food characters like Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and the popular Paw Patrol squad, are helping promote unhealthy eating habits in Canadian children, according to new research.
The study, funded by Heart & Stroke and published Tuesday by researchers from the University of Ottawa, found a link between licenced cartoon characters (like Spiderman) and spokes characters (like Lucky the Leprechaun from Lucky Charms) in enticing children to eat junk food.
“Children love marketing techniques specially targeted at them. So the characters like Tony the Tiger and Snap, Crackle and Pop, that really has a big impact on kids,” said Monique Potvin Kent, associate professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa.
Potvin Kent, who was the lead author of the study, told Global News the researchers found children preferred products that were advertised with those characters and would ask their parents to purchase them.
“The actual mechanism of why it works, that has not been made clear, except they’re very loveable characters and they’re also familiar characters,” she said.
The cartoon characters, Potvin Kent warned, present threats to children’s health.
“Children’s health is at risk. There’s an obesity crisis that’s happening, 30 per cent of our children and teen population are either overweight or obese … the majority of their consumption is from ultra-processed foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt,” Potvin Kent said.
“People want children to be healthy. It’s important so that they don’t develop chronic diseases later on.”