Fast food and young children

Do all children instinctively love fast food? Is the marketing to young children universally successful?

You would think so, superficially. Fast food restaurants choose bright, garish colours that seem to appeal to children. The adverts are often fun and fast paced, for limited attention spans. The food is sugary, fatty and laced with flavour enhancers (I once read that a particular fast food from a Big Name fast food restaurant had 22 flavour enhancers of various kinds in it. Ouch.) The food is, in short, designed to be as addictive as possible.

Yesterday, Tiarnan, 22 months, was watching TV. A Big Name fast food chain advertisement came on - promoting the usual range of palatable, but unhealthy foods.

Our toddler son waited until the ad was over then said: "Urgh!", stuck his tongue out, and said, "Not nice!".

Well, it is back to the marketing department with that one, I think. There is one toddler in the world, at least, who is unconvinced by the attempts to entice him to eat junk.

I wonder how many other toddlers out there react similarly?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)