Cartoon on the Box? Your Kid Will Like the Cereal

Children preferred the taste when there was a penguin on the package
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 8, 2011 1:52 PM CST
Cartoon on the Box? Your Kid Will Like the Cereal
Kids might like these cereals better if they had cartoon characters on the front.   (Flickr)

Want to get your kids eating brussels sprouts? Try putting them in a box with a cartoon character on the front. A new study found that children thought cereal tasted better when it came out of a box with penguins from Happy Feet on the front, USA Today reports. The kids in the study, ages 4 to 6, all ate the same type of cereal—a relatively healthy brand from a natural food store—but some sampled it out of a Happy Feet-decorated box, while others didn’t.

The researchers further divided the boxes: Some kids tried the cereal out of a box with the name “Healthy Bits,” others out of a box with the name “Sugar Bits.” Ultimately, those whose boxes featured the penguins liked the cereal better than those whose boxes were penguin-free—and they didn’t care about the name. Interestingly, when there was no character on the box, kids preferred the “Healthy Bits” cereal over “Sugar Bits.” (More cartoons stories.)

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