Unhealthy Eating Habits in Children Associated with Branding and Logos

Obesity among children has increased at phenomenal rates. While many public health initiatives are working to promote healthy eating, children across the United States continue to gain weight in significant numbers.

Advertising is a leading tool by which fast food and calorie-loaded food choices are promoted to children. With television advertising, parents are often left in a quandary as to how best to avoid the aggravating pleas for that next box of sugary cereal. With brand and logo recognition, these same visual advertisements are carried over into our grocery store adventures, often resulting in the submission of the child's plea.

With exercise levels also on the decline, parents must take a dual approach in tackling obesity risks in your child. Promoting exercise is only half the battle in improving a child's health. Parents taking a strategic approach to marketing and advertising campaigns, can work to avoid the excessive need the child may feel to consume unhealthy food.

Children as young as age two can begin to recognize brands and logos. A primary example is that in the McDonald's brand of food. Without regard to what the food product is, most children, when presented with a food product that has a McDonald's food label, will instinctively want the product and believe it will taste good. If we take the same product and put it in a regular wrapper, without the McDonald's logo, most children would not choose the product simply because of the lack of brand recognition.