Healthy Food Looks Serious: How Children

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Interpret Packaged Food Products

Charlene D. Elliott
University of Calgary

Abstract: Fun food is an overlooked, but increasingly significant, category of

food targeted to children in the supermarket. These supermarket products empha-
size foods’ play factor, interactivity, artificiality, and general distance from “regu-
lar” foods: food is positioned as “fun” and eating as “entertainment.” Using a
series of focus groups, this study examined how children (segmented by age and
gender) interpret these packaged appeals and how the thematic of fun connects
with their understanding of health and nutrition. The study revealed that children
are highly attuned to fun foods and its packaging, offering savvy, if flawed, inter-
pretations of how to determine the healthfulness of a packaged good. I argue that
the symbolic positioning of children’s food as fun and fake creates several road-
blocks in the quest to promote wholesome food habits in children, and that the
thematic of fun has unintended consequences that require careful consideration.

Keywords: Food marketing; Food packaging; Children; Childhood obesity;

Entertainment; Nutrition; Nutrition literacy

Résumé : Au supermarché, les aliments amusants sont une catégorie de

nourriture négligée – mais de plus en plus importante – qui cible les enfants. De
tels produits mettent l’accent sur l’aspect ludique, interactif et artificiel de la
nourriture ainsi que sur leur distance par rapport à la nourriture « normale »;
ainsi, ces aliments sont qualifiés d’amusants et manger est un divertissement.
Cette étude se fonde sur une série de groupes de discussion pour examiner
comment les enfants (divisés par âge et sexe) interprètent ce conditionnement
des aliments et comment la thématique du plaisir influence leur compréhension
de ce qui est sain et nutritif. L’étude révèle que les enfants sont très sensibles aux
nourritures amusantes et à leur présentation, et offrent des interprétations
astucieuses mais défectueuses de leur valeur nutritive. Je soutiens que le
positionnement symbolique de la nourriture pour enfants dans le domaine du
plaisir et de l’artifice crée de nombreux obstacles pour la promotion de bonnes
habitudes alimentaires chez les enfants, et que la thématique du plaisir a des
conséquences non intentionnelles qui requièrent une attention toute particulière.

Charlene D. Elliott is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Calgary,

SS236, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4. Email: [email protected].

Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (2009) 359-380

©2009 Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation
 360 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

Mots clés : Marketing de la nourriture; Conditionnement de la nourriture;

Enfants; Obésité infantile; Divertissement; Nutrition; Alphabétisme nutritionnel
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“The fun starts here.” Such was the promise—and the slogan—of Kraft Foods’
1999 campaign to promote its sweetened Post cereals to children. The campaign
included, among other things, television and Internet advertising, coupon promo-
tions, retail displays, redesigned packaging with greater “shelf impact,” and car-
toon stickers included in Post cereal boxes. Post’s marketing push sought to
capitalize on the 8.5% growth seen in its cereals from the previous year while the
company affirmed its “commitment to innovation with its kid-targeted cereal
brands” (Thompson, 1999b, p. 19).
This “commitment to innovation” in child-oriented food products was not
unique to Kraft. The trend, which formally began in the 1950s with the sugar-
laden cereals targeted at children (McNeal, 1992, p. 8), had significantly
advanced by the 1999 campaign. Indeed, the fun had started by 1999, for in that
year alone: Quaker Oats allocated U.S.$15 million just to market Cap’n Crunch
Cereal (Thompson, 1999a, p. 8); Yoplait launched its enormously successful1 Go-
Gurt kids’ yogurt tubes (Thompson, 2000, p. 30); Kellogg announced it was
“bringing fun” into the cereal aisle by putting Sesame Street mini bean-bag toys
into specially marked cereal boxes (Kellogg Company, 1999); and marketer
James McNeal devoted an entire chapter of The Kids Market to careful instruc-
tions on how to “kidize” packaging. Specifically, McNeal (1999) explained how
marketers could shift from the “A to K” (adult to kid) in package design, so as to
better serve the “end user” (that is, the child) (p. 88).
The “fun start” promised by Post’s campaign threads throughout contempo-
rary children’s food marketing. In 2001, Kraft Foods extended its “fun cereal”
motif to the snack food category, with the U.S.$25 million launch of Lunchables
Fun Snacks. “Some snacks have all the fun” was the slogan for these cookie or
brownie snacks, which children could frost and decorate with sprinkles
(Thompson, 2001, p. 45). Innovation, joined with theme of fun, is now standard
in contemporary child-targeted foods. Kidized packaging is commonplace, and
fun represents an entire category of food products. In today’s supermarket, fun
foods can be found in every food category. They populate the dry goods, dairy,
meat, and refrigerated and frozen foods sections (Elliott, 2008b), and equally tar-
get every major meal. Such children’s foods are not junk or confectionary prod-
ucts; instead, they are regular foods whose packaging and contents specifically
and unambiguously target children.
In the supermarket, children’s foods are cued by their unusual product names
and unconventional flavours or colours, by their cartoon images and (child-
related) merchandizing tie-ins, and by their direct reference or allusion to
fun/play on the package. Fun foods rest on the key themes that food is fun and
eating is entertainment—these products emphasize foods’ play factor, interactiv-
ity, artificiality, and general distance from ordinary or “adult” food (Elliott,
2008a; Elliott, 2008b). Yet no data has been collected on how this U.S.$15 billion
industry (Gates, 2006, p. 38)2 is influencing children’s food preferences and
dietary habits, or, more specifically, how children interpret the packaged food
messages that are directly targeted at them. Although the childhood obesity epi-
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 361

demic has prompted sustained, critical scrutiny of food marketing to children

(Federal Trade Commission, 2008; Harris, Pomeranz, Lobstein, & Brownell,
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2009; Hastings, Stead, McDermott, Forsyth, MacKintosh, Rayner, Godfrey,

Caraher, & Angus, 2003; Hawkes, 2004; Horgan, Choate, & Brownell, 2001;
IOM, 2006) the focus has been predominantly on television advertising to chil-
dren.3 Even though recent studies have expanded in scope to probe online food
marketing to children, such as advergaming (Alvy & Calvert, 2008; Moore, 2006)
or product placement (Moore, 2004; Auty & Lewis, 2004; Tiwsakul, Hackley, &
Szmigin, 2005), the powerful communicator of food packaging is routinely over-
looked. Indeed, it appears that the only people dealing seriously and primarily
with children’s food packaging are the marketers themselves.4
Along with the tendency to overlook children’s food packaging (and the
types of supermarket products targeted at children), a clear gap also exists when
it comes to asking children what this kid friendly food communicates to them.
This reality is underscored by a recent Canadian policy consensus conference
examining “Obesity and the impact of marketing on children.” Hosted by the
Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada (CDPAC) in March 2008, the
conference assembled leading national and international experts to present the
most current sociocultural, legal, and scientific evidence on the problem of mar-
keting and childhood obesity. The panel of assessors, in developing their consen-
sus statement, observed that:
Advertising is but one component of marketing. Today’s marketing is
much more. We were not presented with any thorough research on the
many dimensions of marketing in today’s world, including but not lim-
ited to: pricing . . . labelling; branding, packaging; in-store displays . . .
character creation and celebrity endorsements; and many other platforms
that marketing now employs. (CDPAC, 2008)
The panel further remarked, “The health of Canadian children and the reduction
of childhood obesity are at the centre of this discussion. In our view, the voices
of children and youth themselves are missing in this process and they must be
heard” (CDPAC, 2008).
It is within this context that the current research project was designed. The
goal of this study extends beyond simply observing that food is marketed to chil-
dren using child-friendly appeals (Elliott, 2008b; Linn & Novosat, 2008; Page,
Montgomery & Ponder, 2008; Schor & Ford, 2007). Instead, it investigates how
children interpret food packaging and, heeding the panel’s call at CDPAC, seeks
to bring children’s voices into the discussion. Specifically, this project explores:
1) how children understand and respond to child-oriented foods—both in
terms of packaging and the foods themselves;
2) how this understanding and response varies by age and/or gender; and
3) how children determine and classify what is healthy (both in general,
and in relation to packaged goods).
Drawing from a series of focus groups of children from grades 1 to 6, sepa-
rated according to age and gender, the project aims to provide some introductory
 362 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

probes into an overlooked topic. The question was not about whether fun foods
contribute to childhood obesity (which is a complex, multi-factorial problem), but
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rather to probe the meaning and appeal of these packaged foods to children. To
this end, the article first contextualizes the research on children and marketing
and then outlines the research design and methodology. The research findings,
along with the concluding section titled “Making sense of fun food,” suggest
some of the substantial implications of this type of symbolic marketing. Fun in
food absolutely matters to these children, who fully appreciate the aesthetic, gus-
tatory, tactile, and/or interactive features that these foodstuffs offer. However,
although the children reveal extensive knowledge about the packaging cues they
deem relevant to them, there is a remarkably limited literacy when it comes to
health or nutrition. One unintended consequence of symbolically framing kids
food as fun is that healthy food is seen as plain—and drab.
Contextualizing research on children and food marketing
The childhood obesity epidemic has fueled much of the recent scholarly and pol-
icy interest in food marketing to children. With 26 percent of children being over-
weight or obese, Canada has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the
developed world (Standing Committee, 2007). This problem of childhood obesity
has pulled the food industry and its marketing practices into the spotlight. Food
marketing is critiqued for establishing an “obesogenic” (Swinburn, Egger, &
Raza, 1999) or “toxic environment” (Brownell & Horgen, 2004)—one where
food is symbolically overvalued and always available (Ulijaszek, 2007).
Referring specifically to childhood obesity, Schwartz and Brownell argue that the
food industry makes “relentless efforts to market their brands to children” in a
food environment that “promotes over-consumption of calorie-dense, nutrient-
poor foods” (Schwartz & Brownell, 2007). Their critique is warranted: the
Federal Trade Commission’s (July 2008) report summarizing industry expendi-
tures on marketing food to children revealed that 44 food and beverage compa-
nies spent over $1.6 billion in 2006 advertising foodstuffs directly to youth using
the “full spectrum of promotional techniques and formats” (FTC, 2008). Most of
these expenditures were used to promote precisely the types of poorly nutritious
products that contribute to childhood obesity, including carbonated beverages,
fast foods, and sugar-laden cereals.
Obesity aside, other interesting issues pertain to the relationship between
food and children’s perspectives, although (as previously noted) children’s voices
receive significantly less airtime. Even though academic research about chil-
dren’s culture and consumer practices/preferences has “grown at what seems to
be an exponential rate” over the past two decades (Cook, 2008b, p. 220), critical
studies on children’s perspectives on food—especially supermarket foods—are
rare. Marketing literature, however, provides some insight. Charles Atkin pro-
vided one approach in his 1978 study conducted in the supermarket, which
observed parent-child “decision-making in the selection of breakfast cereals”
(1978, p. 41). His study design called for unobtrusive observations of the parent-
child negotiation over cereals, where a researcher (impersonating a store clerk
carrying a clipboard) recorded “a verbatim description of the sequence of parent-
child exchanges on a standardized form” (Atkin, 1978, p. 42). Basically, the chil-
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 363

dren’s voices were recorded, even though their opinions were not asked. Marketer
James McNeal (1992) attempted to assess children’s perspectives through a dif-
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ferent method, using drawing exercises. McNeal asked a sample of 1,330 chil-
dren (aged 4 to 12) to draw “what comes to your mind when you think about
going shopping” (p. 60). A good percentage of the children (40.2%) thought of
the supermarket first and crayoned supermarket carts filled with packaged goods
and some produce. More recent studies (Cooke & Wardle, 2005; Wardle,
Sanderson, Gibson, & Rapoport, 2001) have used food preference questionnaires
to determine what foods children like—although these studies tend to focus on
single foods (e.g., apples), mixed foods (e.g., lasagna), and condiments (e.g., jam)
instead of packaged foods (see Cooke & Wardle, 2005).
In short, children’s thoughts on supermarket packaged foods are not the sub-
ject of academic inquiry. Even Martin Lindstrom’s BRANDchild, promoted as
“the world’s most extensive study of tween attitudes and brand relationships”
(Lindstrom, 2004, p. 311),5 does not address branded/packaged foods (with the
exception of a cursory nod to branded colas). In Canada, some insight into the
topic of children’s preference was provided by Health Canada’s Nutrition
Programs Unit, which, in 1995, published the results of a national study on chil-
dren’s broad perceptions of healthy eating concepts (Nutrition Programs Unit,
1995). The report documented children’s views about their own eating behav-
iours and the factors influencing their food choices. While this study proves help-
ful in detailing children’s observations about healthy eating in general, it is now
extremely dated and provides no guidance with regard to the category of pack-
aged foods or children’s interpretation of the foods (and food labels) targeted
specifically at them.
Research design and methods
Assessing children’s perspectives on packaged foods is perfectly suited to qualita-
tive research methodology and principles. Qualitative research methods are an
excellent choice when:
1) a concept or phenomenon is immature because of a lack of previous
research in the area (Kitzinger, 1995);
2) the research problem fits well with the insistence in qualitative
research that interpretations include the perspectives and voices of the
people being studied (Lunt & Livingstone, 1996); and
3) when the nature of the concept (because of its seminal connection to
the context in which it occurs) is not well suited to quantitative meas-
ures (Lunt & Livingstone, 1996).
All of these criteria apply to a study on child-responses to fun food.
In light of this, a series of focus groups were conducted with children from
grades 1 to 6. Focus group research is designed to help understand what people
think and why; as such, it provides an ideal research method for exploratory work
on children’s responses to fun food (Deacon, Pickering, Golding, & Murdock,
1999; Heary & Hennessy, 2002; Morgan, Gibbs, Maxwell, & Britten, 2002).
Using a blend of random sampling and convenience sampling, a total of 36 chil-
 364 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

dren were recruited for 6 separate focus groups held in Ottawa in February 2007.6
The groups were divided so that three separate focus groups were held for girls
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(grades 1/2, 3/4, and 5/6), and three separate focus groups were held for boys
(with the same grade segmentation). This allowed the researchers to note differ-
ences in perspective according to both gender and age. (Participants were not
screened specifically for family income or ethnic background.) The study was
conducted in facilities where researchers could view and listen in on the groups
via a two-way mirror and closed-circuit audio in an adjacent room. Heeding rec-
ommendations regarding the optimal size and length of children’s focus groups
(Deacon et al., 1999; Levine & Zimmerman, 1996; Morgan et al., 2002) the
research design aimed for 4-6 children per group, with each session lasting
approximately 60 minutes.
The focus groups were led using a customized moderator’s guide that asked
participants to select from and discuss various child-oriented foods and food
packages. Questions probed children’s food preferences, how they categorize dif-
ferent types of food (i.e., what they like and what they feel is healthy), and how
they make sense of nutrition information/claims on fun food packaging.
Specifically, children were asked to: draw their favourite dinner, conduct mock
shopping trips (where they selected from an array of packages and discussed
packaging appeals), sample and discuss their preferred selections of fun foods,
and explain their thoughts on nutrition and nutrition information. Responses were
audio-taped and subsequently transcribed (with pseudonyms used for all partici-
pants); field notes were also recorded by the researchers during and after each ses-
sion. A provisional list of codes was created from the conceptual framework and
the overarching research questions outlined in the project objectives (described
above), and inductive coding techniques (see Strauss & Corbin, 1998) were used
to create a content analysis of particular topics. Salient themes were identified
and coded following a grounded theory approach. For the purposes of this article,
the goal is less to quantify the focus group findings than to provide a more
nuanced exposition of children’s perceptions and perspectives.
Please note that in the following discussion on the focus groups findings, for
ease of readability, the term “children” refers specifically and solely to the chil-
dren interviewed in the focus groups. As a small, exploratory study, it does not
presume to speak for the preferences of all children.
What would you pick as your favourite dinner?
At the outset of each focus group, the children were given a sheet of paper contain-
ing the image of an empty dinner plate. They were invited to draw their favourite
meal and to explain why they chose the foods they did. Regardless of age or gen-
der, children consistently drew a similar selection of foods. Pizza, fries, and “junk
food” were top choices, with 84 percent of the participants selecting one (or more)
of these items as constituting a favourite meal. Specific fruits and vegetables were
infrequently mentioned—only 25 percent of children identified a fruit or vegetable
as part of their meal. Likely this is unremarkable, since favourite meals may not
contain the types of foodstuffs that children think they ought to eat. Yet the reasons
children gave to explain why these foods were their favourite are worth noting.
Several participants revealed that they love foods precisely because they are not
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 365

“healthy” foods. In children’s classification of foods, it appears junk food is entic-

ing because it is junk (and perhaps in opposition to adult foods).
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John (Grade 1) (G1): I like fries because it’s junk food.

This same theme is elaborated on in the Moderator’s (M) discussion with
Kim (G2):
M: Can you tell us what you put on your dinner plate?
Kim (G2): Chips and treats.
M: And, why did you pick those for dinner?
Kim (G2): I like treats.
M: You like treats. What do you like the most about treats?
Kim (G2): Because they’re junky.
Notions of junk were underscored by the general sense of imbalance characteriz-
ing some of the children’s meals. Children were asked to draw their favourite
meal, but the moderator was clear that the meal was dinner.7 Several of the
responses revealed complete indifference to balance in this meal:
M: Okay, do you want to tell us what you put for your dinner?
Shannon (G1): Pizza . . . and chicken nuggets. And, I was going to put
fries. And, a spring roll.
James (G1): Donuts, fries, and chocolate. . . . I like the donut because it
tastes like chocolate, and the fries are so good.
Olivia (G3): I made a pizza with a chocolate crust, caramel as a sauce,
and then . . . no, wait. With chocolate sauce and caramel for the cheese.
Yet, as previously noted, the majority of children identified some variant of the
“pizza/ fries and something sweet/junky” (often ice cream) combination. Branded
foods were notably absent from this dinnertime discussion, with the exception of
four mentions (Coke [twice], Caramilk chocolate, and Rice Krispies Squares).
Children in this study clearly did not associate their favourite meals with either
branded food or fast foods.
Selecting from child-oriented packaged foods
At this point in the focus group, participants were asked to go on pretend shop-
ping trips and to select the package they found most appealing. Two shopping sta-
tions were set up, displaying various fun and regular food packages of products
in the same food category. To ensure participants were not influenced by the
selections of others in the group, children went to each station one-by-one with a
clipboard and recorded their choices in secret. They then returned to the table and
explained the reasons for their selections.
Shopping Station 1 contained the same options for all of the focus groups,
three boxes of chicken nuggets: a box of President’s Choice® (PC) Mini ChefsTM
Jungle BuddiesTM breaded chicken nuggets, a box of Janes Kids© Disney© Pixar
Buzz Lightyear “fun-shaped breaded” chicken nuggets, and a box of President’s
 366 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

Choice® breaded chicken nuggets. (See

the three images.)
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Shopping Station 2 contained a

selection of either six children’s break-
fast cereals or nine fruit snacks.
Breakfast cereal or fruit snack packages
were rotated between groups, so as to
provide a broader scope of perspectives.
It was in this pretend shopping that
differences in perspectives according to
age started to emerge. The youngest
children (G1/2) unanimously selected
the fun shaped nuggets—either PC®
Mini Chefs Jungle BuddiesTM or Janes
Kids© Disney© Pixar Buzz Lightyear.
Their focus was on the shape of the
nuggets (50 percent of participants
noted this) and the merchandizing tie-in
with Buzz Lightyear (33%). Some chil-
dren (17%) observed that the fun
nuggets looked like they would taste
better. The older children (G3/4 and
G5/6) were less likely to indicate that
they selected a package because of its
fun shapes (11 percent and 13 percent,
respectively), and none of them men-
tioned the merchandizing tie-in as a rea-
son for their choice. For grades 3/4, all
of the boys and half of the girls selected
the regular chicken nuggets as their top
choice—which was also the choice for
all of the girls and 4 out of 6 boys in
grades 5/6. The reasons provided were
considerably more focused on the aes-
thetics of the package and/or a focus on
taste: almost 56 percent of grade 3/4
participants and 67 percent of grade 5/6
participants made some direct reference to package aesthetics or the product
“looking tastier” as the reason for their selection. The girls were more attuned to
the package attractiveness, colour, and overall design:
Kristen (G5): I picked number 3 [the regular nuggets] because it looks
pretty and, I don’t know, I just like it.
M: You find the food looks pretty?
Kristen (G5): The whole box looks pretty.
Susan (G5): I liked number 3 as well; I think it looks a bit more perfect
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 367

to me. It also just, looking at the way it is displayed, it looks more appe-
tizing. The other ones just don’t look as good tasting.
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Kristen (G5): I also notice that it looks like it is from a restaurant because
it’s in a small basket with the cloth and the little vegetables in the back-
ground. That makes it look prettier.
At first blush, it appears that these children’s preferences matured from a focus
on fun and shapes (G1/2) to an appreciation of aesthetics and taste (G3/4 & 5/6).
However, the older children’s responses were deeply informed by a concern
about how their selections might appear to the rest of their peer group. When it
came to the chicken nuggets, the older children were resistant to selecting pack-
ages that were “too young for them.”
Carly (G5): I like number 3 because I look at number 1 [Jungle Buddies]
and I saw it was in animal shapes and I had that when I was four. And
with the little persons [Buzz Lightyear package], I thought it looked like
for little kids…
Hailey (G6): I had the same one as Carly. I think it is maybe because
sometimes, depending on what age you are, you don’t necessarily like
certain shapes that maybe younger kids would like. . . . If you were to
have younger kids in the group, they would have probably gone for those
[the other selections].
Susan (G5): [PC nuggets] It’s just more appropriate for me.
Again, this appeared to be driven solely by the children’s desire to be perceived
by their peers as mature. When they were asked which product they thought their
friends might like, half of the older children selected the fun shaped nuggets
instead of the plain ones, and provided rather enthusiastic explanations as to
why.8
Children’s cereals and fruit snacks
Shopping Station 2 provided a greater array of packaged products, yet the chil-
dren’s selections (and their explanations) generally mirrored the trends observed
in their first shopping venture. Grade 1/2 children were more likely to cite cross-
merchandizing as a reason for choosing a product (although it was not a dominant
reason), whereas older children were more likely—far more likely—to specifi-
cally comment on the packaging or package aesthetics. None of the children in
grades 1 to 4 referred to packaging to explain why they selected particular cere-
als or fruit snacks, whereas 50 percent of the girls and 43 percent of the boys in
grades 5/6 made mention of it.
Mavis (G5): [Explaining why she liked one package over the other choices]
It’s yeah, the colour. It makes it stand out. I think if you go to a store and
you were to walk by, you wouldn’t see C since the colours, well they don’t
pop out to you as much as the other ones do. If you have a better package
for it, then someone may look at it more than people usually would.
Kristen (G5): I agree. If you had like highlighters, you would say “oh it’s
highlighters” . . . your eyes are attracted to it. And with the colours, why
 368 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

I chose B is because of the colours . . . the green and the yellow, and that’s
why . . .
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Aesthetic reasons were also provided for why a product was not chosen:
Simon (G5): I hate the box, the box is ugly. . . . The other ones probably
taste better and have a little bit more flavour.
Daniel (G5): It doesn’t really stand out as much, and it [the cereal] is
small, and people don’t want to pick small things. It’s not that interesting
because there’s just this bowl standing still with a bunch of cereal.
Daniel’s comment reveals the degree to which fun matters to children, irrespec-
tive of the older children’s desire to distance themselves from little kids’ food. In
fact, concerns over selecting packages that were too young were largely absent in
the children’s discussion of cereals and fruit snacks. It is important to emphasize
that older children do not associate fun with little kids. (They have no problem
with the concept of fun!) Moreover, all of the children showed considerable inter-
est in the unique product claims or play aspects the packages trumpeted, as well
as their surface appearance.
Shawn (G3): [Discussing Betty Crocker Tongue Talk Tattoo fruit snacks]
You can get a tattoo from it and you can roll it up into a ball and suck on
it. I like to put it around my finger.
James (G1): [Discussing Sun-Ripe Squiggles fruit snacks] It’s junk food
and I love it. It’s very long and they squiggle like a worm.
Lindsay (G2): The Polly Pockets [fruit snacks] look fun because they
have sparkles and everything.
Tyler (G2): [Discussing General Mills Chocolate Lucky Charms] The
marshmallows are magical and each one has a power. And I like the
colours on the box.
Simon (G5): [Discussing Chocolate Lucky Charms] It looks delicious.
M: What makes it look tastier than the other ones?
Simon (G5): Because of the rainbow things. And, it’s in a pot of gold.
Jake (G6): It looks kinda cool. The box looks cool with streaks of colour
coming out.

The appeal of fun foods

Interest in surface appearance and play extended, not surprisingly, to the foods
themselves. Children were asked to select their top choice from a tray containing
samples of nine child-oriented cereals or fruit snacks. Selections were rotated in
each session so that the children who examined cereal packages during their shop-
ping trip sampled fruit snacks, and vice versa. (Children were able to taste/eat the
snacks they selected.) Then all of the children had the opportunity to choose from
an array of child-oriented yogurts or pudding snacks (and taste their choice). No
packages or identifying material accompanied the samples; children selected
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 369

them based on the look of the foodstuff alone. (An exception is the yogurts/pud-
dings, which were individually packaged in tubes or cups.)
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Again, the theme of play factored strongly; children were intrigued by the
foods’ unusual colours and shapes and often indicated that they selected a sample
because of these unique characteristics. The more unusual the colour or unique
the feature, the better. Ryan (G5) selected pudding because “the [blue] colour
stood out, and it looked good”; Jake (G6) picked pink pudding for the same rea-
son (“the pink stood out”). Some participants were drawn to Yogo’s fruit snacks
because of their “neat” multi-colours, but also because “you can throw them up
in the air” (Kim, G2) or because “they look like you can roll them” (Brendan,
G2). In short, a general feeling expressed in all the focus groups is that fun or play
remains an important variable.
Interactivity versus aesthetics
Differences in gender emerged in the discussion of why certain products were
chosen over others. Interest in a food’s interactivity was substantially more pro-
nounced for boys, whereas girls (particularly the older ones [G5/6]) generally
focused on the aesthetic qualities of food. In the case of the yogurt/pudding sam-
ples, all children were invited to select from nine products. This included yogurt
in brightly coloured portable tubes (Babang and Kaboum flavours), as well as
Squeeze N Go pudding (also in a tube). A number of portable pudding snacks (in
clear plastic) were offered, including bubblegum and cotton candy flavours
(coloured bright pink and robin blue, respectively), Chocolate Splat! pudding
(brown), and layered parfait-style puddings (one chocolate and vanilla, and the
other, Oreo cookie layered puddings). Gendered differences to these options were
remarkable. All of the boys (except two) chose the yogurt or pudding tubes—
packages that allowed kids to squirt its contents into their mouths (often holding
the tubes far up in the air with head tilted back to catch it), or squeeze the prod-
uct onto their lips, or suck it up all in at once, as if through as straw. Although the
boys did not usually articulate that the tube motivated their choice, they were
absolutely drawn to this form of packaging.9
In contrast, all of the girls selected the parfait-style puddings. Unlike Eric’s
(G4) observation that “when things look fancier, they taste worse,” the girls
appreciated the “pretty” components of the product, and the fact that (unlike the
squirtable tubes) they could be savoured:
Gwen (G4): [Discussing the chocolate/vanilla parfait pudding] I can enjoy
it more and I can save it for later, but with the tubes, it finishes very fast.
Isabella (G6): I thought it was a pretty package.
M: So, you like the colour? Why did you pick it over the tube things?
Isabella (G6): I like the stripes.
Mavis (G5): I thought it was interesting how it had stripes. . . . It looked
the most appetizing.
The girls also were more likely to discuss the associational values evoked by the
food/package, noting it reminded them of something (be it a movie, family out-
 370 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

ing, feeling, et cetera). This did not happen with the boys, who provided more
concrete explanations or focused on what they could do with the product (i.e.,
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squeeze it, stretch it, twist it, play with it).

Vivienne (G1): [Discussing Oreo striped parfait pudding] I picked it
because me and my friend went to a farm of cows, and it reminded me
of the cow. Sometimes they are black and white.
Kristen (G5): [Discussing Jungle Buddies chicken nuggets] It looks fun-
ner because I like animals. And because, well actually, for the other box
[of Buzz Lightyear shaped nuggets] in class we are doing space and it
makes me think of homework.
Melissa (G2): [Discussing Froot Loops cereal] At school we made a
necklace with Froot Loops, and at the end we got to eat it.

Classifying healthy: In general, and for packaged foods

Classifying healthy is another important question when it comes to probing chil-
dren’s interpretations of packaged food—and food in general. Cereals, fruit
snacks, yogurts, cheeses, canned pasta, frozen meals, packaged lunches—all
offer fun food for sale. Yet no published research assesses how children classify
what is healthy and not healthy in this vast array of consumables. Given this, the
focus groups also probed what children consider to be healthy food and how they
make sense of the healthfulness of packaged goods.
Without question, Canadians are concerned about food’s health qualities. The
latest Tracking Nutrition Trends surveyed over 2,000 Canadians (18 years and
older) and reported that 91% of those polled deemed a food’s “healthfulness”
either “somewhat important” or “very important” when choosing what to eat
(CCFN, 2008, p. 3). But healthfulness is a nebulous concept, both for adults (see
CCFN, 2008, p. 2) and for children. Indeed, the children in this study showed a
limited understanding of the health qualities of food. When asked to name a
healthy food and explain why it was healthy, 67% of the children named a fruit
or a vegetable, 17% named bread or pasta, and 7% named yogurt or cheese.
Fifteen percent of children said “they didn’t know”—comments made more inter-
esting given that the focus group setting allows children to echo another child’s
response, should they desire.10
With 67% of participants naming a fruit or vegetable as a healthy food, it per-
haps seems odd to argue that they have limited understanding of the health qual-
ities of food. Yet this logic becomes clear when one considers the range of foods
identified: specific fruits and vegetables were mentioned, but dairy, whole grains,
lean meats, and fish were rarely given as examples of healthy foods. Consider,
too, children’s explanations of why the food is healthy.
Stuart (G3): Carrots, because it’s a vegetable.
Melissa (G2): Apples . . . because, fruits are good for you.
Ryan (G5): I would say fruits and vegetables, because everybody says
they’re healthier for you.
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 371

Mavis (G5): Broccoli. It’s a green vegetable, and I heard they are healthy.
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Simon (G5): Pasta, because it’s good for you . . . I think.

While a number of children (starting from grades 3 up) observed that fruits or
vegetables are healthy because they have “vitamins” (and two children identified
calcium as the reason cheese/yogurt is healthy), 70% of the children either did not
know why the item they selected was healthy or provided a self-evident answer
(i.e., oranges because they’re fruit). This lack of knowledge over healthy
extended to children’s evaluation of packages and nutritional claims as well.
“The box looks serious”: Children discuss how to tell if a packaged
product is good for you
When asked what they looked for on packaging to help them determine whether
the food is healthy or not, children pointed to a number of important clues. They
mentioned the ingredient list (22%) or the presence of a “smart check” or symbol
(17%). Some children conflated the absence of (allergy-inducing) ingredients
with product healthfulness, with 14% saying that “a peanut with a circle and a
line” on a package is a clue that a food is healthy.
Zack (G5): One of the rules that I always was taught is if there’s big
words, like really big words that you can’t pronounce, it’s probably
another way to say sugar.
Awareness of the nutrition facts table was remarkably low: only 8% of children
(all from grades 5/6) named the nutrition facts table as means of evaluating
whether a product is “good for you.” While this suggestion was well received by
the other participants in the grades 5/6 focus group (some nodded agreement or
verbally called out in affirmation), the children could not actually explain what
the nutrition facts table “meant.” They simply knew to look for it on packages,
because they had learned it at school (and for some, at home).
This said, children provided remarkably sophisticated—although not neces-
sarily accurate—explanations about how to tell if a packaged food is healthy.
Some of the answers (from 16% of the children, mostly grades 1/2) were com-
pletely wrong headed:
Christine (G1): You can tell [it’s healthy] by the front cover. If [the food]
is shaped, then it may have been cut with a dirty knife.
Yet most of the statements demonstrated a savvy reasoning, even if the answers
were incorrect. Kim (G6) used calories as the sole indicator of health (“it has only
130 calories per serving, which makes it really healthy”), whereas 20% of the
children relied on some aspect of the package image to determine healthy:
Katie (G3): If the box looks serious [it’s a healthy food].
Christine (G1): Green means it’s healthy.
Brendan (G2): When there is green on the box, it means it’s healthy.
Joshua (G3): [Explaining why Honeycomb cereal was a healthy choice]
It has honey on the box.
Several children suggested that they can simply tell by looking.
 372 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

Susan (G5): Usually I know what’s healthy; even if you look at the pic-
ture you can tell.
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Travis (G3): [The box] looks really good and healthy.

This reliance on the visual assessments and associational indicators of health
also played out in the children’s selection of foods. If a serious package or its
colour could indicate healthfulness for some children, then so could look of the
foodstuff itself. Jake (G6) picked the Kellogg’s Fruit Winders fruit snack to eat
because, even though he thought the Froot Loops fruit snack “probably tasted bet-
ter,” the Fruit Winders “looked better for you.”11 Zack (G5) explained that
Honeycomb cereal was healthy because it was brown. The flipside also held true.
Gwen (G4) explained that Lucky Charms cereal probably was not healthy
“because they have covered the marshmallows in food colouring.”
“It says fat free, so you won’t get fat”: Children’s understanding of
nutrition claims
Front-of-package labelling has become ubiquitous in recent years, as food manu-
facturers strive to position their products to capitalize on consumers’ interest in
health. Canada’s decade-old Health Check program (governed by the Heart and
Stroke Foundation) exists to “help consumers make healthy food choices within
food categories, at the point of purchase, across all eligible food categories”
(Heart and Stroke Foundation, 2008, pp. 3-4). Numerous other front-of-pack
“nutrition symbols” or food rating systems also exist, since food manufacturers
have each created their own logos, slogans, or symbols—as well as their own cri-
teria—as a strategy to communicate a food’s healthfulness to consumers.
While certain scholars have criticized the validity of nutrition claims in gen-
eral (see Elliott, 2008a; Nestle, 2002; Pollan, 2008; Smith, Stephen, Dombrow, &
Macquarrie, 2002), they are also promoted as a strategy for improving people’s
diets. Even the Standing Committee on Health, which issued the Healthy Weights
for Healthy Kids report in 2007, suggests that “Increas[ing] Awareness Through
Front of Package Labelling” can help to promote healthy weights in children
(Standing Committee on Health, 2007, p. 22) and is something that “must be
done” to “tackle the issue of childhood obesity” (p. 18).
But this imperative seems wrong-headed, since children in this study
revealed little understanding of the meaning of nutrition claims. First, (as earlier
noted) they rarely referred to nutrition symbols in explaining the clues to use in
evaluating whether a packaged food was healthy (17%). When directly asked
about particular symbols found on the packaged foods being examined, children
were rarely able to demonstrate a comprehension of what it means for food to be
fat free, organic, or made with whole grains, etc. Children would literally read the
claim (“it says fat free”) and then come up with their own, reasonable, explana-
tions. Discussing a round, orange symbol that proclaimed FAT FREE, participants
observed:
Matthew (G1): It says fat free so you won’t get fat.
Abigail (G3): You won’t get any fatter if you’re already very fat.
Geoff (G4): It means you won’t get fat.
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 373

Regarding a green CERTIFIED ORGANIC logo:

Zack (G5): I’ve not seen it before, but I can tell that it is a sponsor say-
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ing that something about this is true. Like for that it means it is good qual-
ity food. That company probably has taste testers.
Daniel (G5): I’m not 100% sure what it is. But it says certified organic.
So that means organic food and it was tested and looked at to make sure
that it actually is organic and it’s not just flavours that make it look
organic or taste organic.
Kristen (G5): The label is green so it’s not mass produced in some green-
house.
There was also the tendency to assume the symbols cued other diet or health-
related qualities. Jake (G6) interpreted the FAT FREE symbol to mean “low in
calories, [so] it’s good for you.” Vivienne (G1), and many others, equated the
symbol with healthy (“it means it is really healthy”). Judging from the discussion
in these focus groups, it appears that front-of-package labelling is of little help to
children in accurately assessing the health of a product. Most of the children did
not notice the claims on their own. It is worth noting, however, that some of the
older female participants (G5/6) engaged in a lengthy, critical discussion over the
use of several nutrition claims on the front of a particular box of sugared cereal.
They dismissed the claims as lacking in credibility.
Susan (G5): No one’s going to believe it.
Hailey (G6): I don’t believe it since chocolate is unhealthy and marsh-
mallows are unhealthy. The only thing healthy is the milk. It’s just to get
you to buy it.
Yet this was the only group to discuss the credibility of package claims.
Remarkably, no such skepticism was voiced regarding any of the other semiotic
elements on the package.
Making sense of fun food: Discussion and implications
Although a small-scale study, these focus groups provide fascinating insight into
how children make sense of fun food and its packaging. As the sales figures attest,
parents and care-givers are certainly purchasing these supermarket products for
their children. Children, in turn, show deep appreciation for the aesthetic, gusta-
tory, tactile and/or interactive features that these foodstuffs offer. The focus
groups consistently revealed how passionate children can be about food; they
spoke enthusiastically and extensively about their favourite edibles and about
why they selected particular packages. “Loving” food was articulated repeatedly
(e.g., “I love chocolate,” “I love the cheese [on pizza],” “It’s junk food, and I love
it,” “They’re yummy, and I’m in love with them”).
These children were equally interested in taste, primarily explaining their
selections in light of personal taste preferences (i.e., appreciation for chocolate,
marshmallows, sweetness, sourness). The food package’s look factored strongly
in the children’s comments about taste, and they were very clear about what
looked tastier. This said, a discernable evolution was present in terms of the appre-
 374 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

ciation of the aesthetic qualities of packaging. While younger children were more
likely to be attracted to cross-merchandizing techniques (i.e., Buzz Lightyear,
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Spiderman, or Polly Pocket) and fun shapes, older children contemplated the
overall look of the package—its colours, design, and their appreciation (or not!)
of its images. The oldest girls in particular demonstrated a fairly sophisticated aes-
thetic sense, commenting on whether products looked tasty and selecting items
based on overall display—be it the “pretty” package or “appetizing” nature of the
parfait puddings “with the stripes.”
Although a clear progression existed with regard to aesthetic appreciation,
this study did not reveal any discernable evolution in terms of actual taste.
Children, regardless of age, showed, and said, that they loved chocolate, junk
food, and sugary cereals/fruit snacks/puddings. They did not grow out of choco-
late Lucky Charms cereal by Grade 6, for example—virtually every child in the
study (92%) selected it as their top choice.
Of course, the central interest in this study pivoted on children’s interpreta-
tion of and responses to fun food—and the focus groups revealed that fun
absolutely matters to children. Food holds a special position in children’s lives,
and not for nutritive reasons. As Newton (1992) argues in her discussion of pop-
ular culture foodways:
Playing with food—by learning the ‘rules’ for eating Oreo cookies or
spaghetti or Jell-O—quickly becomes part of a child’s repertoire of play
behaviour. Although this food play is not approved of in most house-
holds, often adults and children have a tacit understanding about Jell-O:
Jell-O for dessert is license to play. (p. 253)
Yet as the proliferation of fun food underscores, no longer is a “license to play”
reserved for Oreos or Jell-O. Scholars such as Buckingham (2000), Seiter (1993),
and others have long emphasized that cultural constructions of childhood are
defined in opposition to adulthood. This opposition also unfolds with regard to
food, and is reinforced by child-oriented food marketing. As Schor and Ford
(2007) observe, the symbolic marketing characterizing children’s food persuades
children “to eat particular foods, not on the basis of their tastiness, or other bene-
fits, but because of their place in a social matrix of meaning” (p. 16). This “place,”
I suggest, resides squarely within the theme of fun. Food marketers design and
offer up fun food for consumption, and in many ways children are merely acting
out the scripts provided for them. But these scripts clearly resonate with children.
Researchers probing the relationship between food advertising and childhood
obesity affirm that “today, children opt for their own preferred food and drink
rather than acquiescing to parental preferences” (Eagle, Bulmer, de Bruin, &
Kitchen, 2004, p. 52), and the focus group participants patently demonstrated that
these foods were of utmost appeal. Boys were particularly drawn to the interac-
tivity (and transgressive eating practices) promised by the food products; they
also liked foods because of their strange colours and “cool” shapes. Girls were
more likely to choose products because of their pretty colours and general aes-
thetic appeal. The fun resided in the colours, “in the sparkles” and the associa-
tional elements the food presented—be it a memory, a personal experience with
family/friends/at school, or a link to a movie. As a whole, the children were
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 375

highly attuned to the range of cues that made food fun, quickly identifying the
Polly Pocket or SpongeBob Squarepants fruit snacks, the “gushing” quality of
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Betty Crocker’s Fruit Gushers, or the fun tattoo feature of Betty Crocker’s
Tongue Talk Tattoo Fruit Roll-Ups. Many could (and would spontaneously) iden-
tify the special “power” represented by each marshmallow in Lucky Charms.
These responses reveal the degree to which young children are embedded in a
world of commercial marketing/media—but the children’s interest in the pack-
ages and products themselves (e.g., colours, interactivity, aesthetics, et cetera) did
not stem solely from cross-merchandising or advertising appeals.
While the children discussed the fun aspects of food at length, their under-
standing of health was quite limited. Their ideal meals certainly did not reflect
Canada’s Food Guide recommendations, and their discussion of healthy foods
often comprised self-evident claims. But it is their evaluation of how to determine
if a packaged food is healthy that is the most remarkable because, while the nutri-
tion facts table or ingredient list was given a cursory nod, children favoured their
own interpretive accounts. These accounts equally tended to conflate certain
markers with “healthy” (e.g., green = healthy, serious = healthy). Policy recom-
mendations for more front-of-pack labelling (such as those suggested by the
Standing Committee on Health, 2007) may influence adult food selections, but
such labels certainly did not lead to more informed food choices with the children
interviewed in these focus groups. Indeed, children’s misunderstanding of nutri-
tion (communicated through symbols/logos) also played out in their discussions
of why they might pick certain products over another. For instance, Honeycomb
cereal was identified as a healthier choice by several participants because of the
honey pictured on the box or because it was coloured brown. Alpha Bits cereal
was preferred by one participant because, she argued, “I don’t really like sugared
cereals.” These kinds of responses underscore the opportunity for further educa-
tion for children when it comes to determining healthy foods. As already men-
tioned, the children were highly literate when it came to deciphering
packages—just not in the right arenas.
In fairness, the food industry has complicated the issue by putting front-of-
pack nutrition claims on products that children do not identify as “good for you.”
So-called “goodness corners” on boxes of sugary, marshmallow-laden cereals are
a case in point, and some older children rightfully observed that the presence of
these claims worked to undermine the credibility of the product as a whole. But
the bigger issue is that children do not associate fun—or fun food—with nutrition.
The more fun the package and product appears to be, the less children correlate
it with health or classify it as a healthy selection. This raises some interesting
challenges for food manufacturers who have developed “fun and healthy” prod-
uct lines for children, but use the exact same techniques (such as cartoon images,
unusual shapes, fun product names, wild colours, et cetera) to cue children’s food
to children and their parents. To reiterate one of the more interesting claims made
in the focus groups, some of the children observed that they could tell if a prod-
uct was healthy simply by seeing whether the package looked serious or not.
Serious packages, for children, are healthy food packages. Fun packages, regard-
less of the presence of nutrition claims, are not evaluated under the lens of health.
 376 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (3)

But the biggest issue underpinning this fun food marketing is the question of
meaning. What are the implications of promising (as did Post’s cereal campaign)
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that “the fun starts here”? There is certainly something problematic about posi-
tioning food mainly as fun. Eating for entertainment (or distraction) is one of the
main drivers of the current obesity epidemic, and it leads to a distorted relation-
ship with food. (Like food marketing in general, fun food marketing also does not
address any notion of portion control.) The fact that children are being taught,
through fun food messages, to value food strictly for its play factor is troubling;
children learn taste preferences very early on, and they persist over time. When
we teach children that “the fun starts” when they sit down in front of processed
and pointedly artificial food—comprised of strange shapes, bizarre colours, or
magical qualities—we are leading them down a dangerous path. Healthy food, as
one child observed, does look serious, and (especially in light of the childhood
obesity epidemic) it is critical that serious food be given prominence in the social
matrix of meaning that defines children’s fare.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this research was generously provided by the Canadian Institutes of
Health Research. The author would like to thank Bernie Gauthier for his assis-
tance in coordinating and overseeing the focus groups.
Notes
1. Described as “kid-targeted slurpable yogurt in a tube,” Yoplait’s Go-Gurt captured $100 million
in retail sales within eight months of its launch, “bolstering General Mills to No. 1 in refrigerated
yogurt ahead of Dannon Co.” and “trigger[ing] a new growth phase for the category as a whole”
(Thompson, 2000, p. 30).
2. Data are not available on the overall sales of fun foods in Canadian supermarkets. However, the
sales of food individual brand lines are equally striking. Fun yogurts targeted at children—such
as Yoplait’s Go-Gurt and Dannon’s D’animals line—had sales of U.S.$99.9 million and $94 mil-
lion, respectively, for the 52-week period ending in March 2007 (Cultured products shine, 2007,
p. 16). In Canada, the Toronto-based NDP group identified fruit snacks/rolls as one of the fastest
growing snack foods (Cooper, 2006, p. 6). And Canada’s President’s Choice Mini Chefs brand—
launched nationally in December 2004 and targeted specifically at children—has since tripled the
number of products in the line.
3. See, for example, Batada, Seitz, Wootan, & Story, 2008; Botterill & Kline, 2006; Consumers
International, 1996; Cook, 2008a; Harris, 2008; Gantz, Schwartz, Angelini, & Rideout, 2007;
IOM, 2006; Kotz & Story, 1994; Livingstone, 2005; Powell, Szczypka, Chaloupka, &
Braunschweig, 2007. As the U.S.-based Institute of Medicine Committee on Food Marketing and
the Diets of Children and Youth reported “television advertising remains the dominant form of
marketing reaching children . . . that is formally tracked” (IOM, 2006, p. 15).
4. In 2006, Palmer and Carpenter observed that marketers spend “over $3 billion annually to design
food product packaging that children and youth will want to purchase” (2006, p. 167)—a figure
that has undoubtedly increased, particularly in light of the number of supermarket food brands (or
sub-brands) aimed exclusively at children. These include, for example, Loblaw’s highly popular
President’s Choice Mini Chefs brand, Safeway’s Eating Right Kids line, Nature’s Path
EnviroKidz brand and Earth’s Best Sesame Street line of children’s foods.
5. The BRANDchild study spanned seven countries and interviewed thousands of children.
6. Ethics approval and written parental consent was obtained prior to holding the focus groups.
Recruits for the convenience sample comprised 32 of the 36 children and were drawn from
acquaintances of the research company (Delta Media Inc.) that hosted and moderated the focus
groups. To completely fill the groups, four children were recruited randomly using a standard tele-
phone directory listing for Ottawa.
 Elliott / How Children Interpret Packaged Food Products 377

7. The moderator’s instructions included: “So, if you could choose what you would have for dinner,
what would it be? . . . Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, just do your best to draw
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your favourite dinner.”

8. This enthusiasm over kids’ food (despite what the older children might have said) was demon-
strated throughout the focus groups. At points, the children were literally crawling on the table to
get their first pick of the cereals.
9. The remaining two boys were drawn to the most unnatural shades of pudding—blue and pink.
10. The percentage breakdown (67% fruit/vegetable; 17% bread/pasta; 7% yogurt/cheese; and 15%
“don’t know”) adds up to more than 100 because some children provided more than one example
of a healthy food.
11. Neither product was a healthy choice, owing to the high proportion of calories coming from sugar
and the fact that the fruit snack would be better classified as a fruit-flavoured snack.

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