Asking Your Children What Their Superheroes Would Eat Primes Them To Make Healthier Fast Food Choices

What could go wrong?

Popeye inspired a generation of growing Baby Boomers to eat its spinach. Today, role models such as Batman can prompt children to develop their own healthy eating habits, a recent Cornell University study finds.

"Fast food patronage is a frequent reality for many children and their parents. Simply instructing a parent to order healthier food for a child is neither empowering for a child nor easy for a parent," said Brian Wansink, Cornell professor of marketing, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and study co-author. "Advising parents to ask their child, 'What would Batman eat?' might be a realistic step to take in what could be a healthier fast-food world."

The findings appear in the paper, "What would Batman eat? Priming children to make healthier fast food choices," which is published in the journal Pediatric Obesity. Wansink, along with post-doctoral researcher Mitsuru Shimizu and visiting graduate student Guido Camps of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, conducted a study in which 22 children, ages 6 to 12, at a summer camp were asked if they wanted apple fries or French fries during several consecutive Wednesday lunches.

Apparently nothing as these folks prove: