Mickey D's wrappers trick kids' taste buds

CHICAGO - Anything made by McDonald's tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can affect the taste buds of young children.

Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.

The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.

Study author Dr. Tom Robinson, of Stanford University, said the kids' perception of taste was "physically altered by the branding."

The study involved 63 low-income children ages 3 to 5 from Head Start centers in San Mateo County, Calif. Robinson believes the results would be similar for children from more well-to-do families.

The research appears in August's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine and likely will stir more debate over the movement to restrict ads to kids. It comes less than a month after 11 major food and drink companies, including McDonald's, announced curbs on marketing to children under 12.

But Dr. Victor Strasburger, an author of an American Academy of Pediatrics policy urging limits on marketing to children, said the study shows that too little is being done.

"It's an amazing study and it's very sad," Strasburger said.

"Advertisers have tried to do exactly what this study is talking about - to brand younger and younger children, to instill in them an almost obsessional desire for a particular brand-name product," he said.

Just two of the 63 children studied said they'd never eaten at McDonald's, and about one-third ate there at least weekly. Most recognized the McDonald's logo, but it was mentioned to those who didn't.

The study included three McDonald's menu items - hamburgers, chicken nuggets and french fries - and store-bought milk or juice and carrots. Children got two identical samples of each food on a tray, one in McDonald's wrappers or cups and the other in plain, unmarked packaging. The kids were asked if they tasted the same or if one was better. (Some children didn't taste all the foods.)

McDonald's-labeled samples were the clear favorites. French fries were the biggest winner; almost 77 percent said the labeled fries tasted best, and only 13 percent preferred the others.

Fifty-four percent preferred McDonald's-wrapped carrots versus 23 percent who liked the plain-wrapped sample.

The only results not statistically clear-cut involved the hamburgers, with 29 kids choosing McDonald's-wrapped burgers and 22 choosing the unmarked ones.

Fewer than one-fourth of the children said both samples of all foods tasted the same. *