A study shows how fast food chains' logos are enough to light up pleasure centers in children's brains.
By Colin Lecher Posted 09.26.2012 at 10:00 am 4 Comments

Times Square Mcdonald's Wikimedia Commons

This new study sounds a lot like a 21st-century redo of Pavlov's experiments with dogs: show kids the McDonald's logo and watch their little neurons light up like the Fourth of July. The University of Missouri-Kansas City and University of Kansas Medical Center showed 10- to 14-year-olds more than 100 brands, then watched the results in an MRI. It showed their reward and pleasure centers flaring when they saw logos for food companies.

The brands they showed weren't always food brands, but when they were, they got the same results as showing actual food. From Sun News:

Researcher Dr. Amanda Bruce says children are more likely to choose those foods with familiar logos, and a majority of meals marketed to children are high in sugars, fat and sodium.
Bruce told QMI Agency that the brain scans showed reflexes to logos are not much different than when a child is shown images of actual food.
"Similar areas of the brain are also implicated in obesity and various types of addiction, including drug abuse," she said.


Good thing the advertisements are easy to avoid.

[Sun News]

4 Comments

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Robot
09/26/12 at 10:22 am

I can only imagine children development emotions are easily subject to programing instinctively to symbolic marketing of something safe or unsafe, but are not influence by the long term negative effects of fast food or what is unsafe over a long term delayed period.

The concept seems naturally to make sense and at the same time I want business to get out of our childrens heads.

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Ebrainer1
09/26/12 at 8:10 pm

Actually the advertisements aren't that easy to avoid. Walk down the street, open a webpage, try to watch a television show, and you're hit with dozens of ads for all kinds of things. The average person can't do without television or think of installing an adblocker for their internet browser.

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killerT
09/27/12 at 9:32 am

This study doesn't say much. They are basically just showing children symbols for things they enjoy and observing their positive reaction. You could get the same reaction out of them by saying "Lets go out for ice cream"
No logo necessary. Just the idea.
Older folks may have the same reaction for some home cooked meals, snacks or candy, because that's what they enjoyed eating as children.
Your child can never have that reaction to an M unless that is what you let them eat.
Its YOUR fault parents!

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tundrasea
09/29/12 at 4:06 pm

To whom it may concern (you know who you are): animated avatars are extremely annoying. They are no better than animated ads. The apparent motion makes it nearly impossible to read the text beside them. It certainly makes it not worth the while.

Get rid of animated avatars! Let the content of your post speak for itself. If you think you need an animation to call attention to yourself, and your post -- that tells me you have nothing worthwhile to say. I just scroll on past your hyperactive icons.



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