Researchers first randomly showed 60 eighth graders a svelte jelly-bean-like cartoon character or a similar rotund character and asked them to comment on the images. Children who had seen the rotund cartoon character helped themselves to more than double the number of candies as children shown the lean character, taking 3.8 candies on average, compared with 1.7 taken by children shown the lean bean character.
But activating children’s existing health knowledge can counter these effects, the researchers discovered. In a separate experiment, the children who were asked about healthy habits before doing the taste test ate fewer cookies — even if they had first been exposed to the rotund cartoon character. Those who were shown the rotund figure ate 4.2 cookies on average if they were asked about healthy habits after eating the cookies, compared to three cookies if they were asked about healthy habits before doing the taste test. Children who saw the normal weight character and who were asked about healthy habits after the taste test also ate about three cookies.
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