OddFile: Kids in Africa Are Starving

Image by sun dazed via Flickr

It’s like your mother always said: Don’t waste food — there are kids starving in Africa. Of course, the food you threw in the trash or fed to the dog wasn’t shipped in from Ethiopia; one thing didn’t really affect the other. Still, we don’t like to kids waste food.

Thus, the question: Do kids waste more food or less food if served “cute” food? And thus the study: “Snack consumption and waste by preschool children served ‘cute’ versus regular snacks“:

OBJECTIVE: To determine if preschool children would eat and waste different amounts of food when served snacks in a regular versus a “cute” form. DESIGN: Preschool children were served 6 snacks in a cute form and the same snacks in a regular form using the same food components during 24 snack sessions. Children served as their own controls. SUBJECTS/SETTING: Thirty-nine children ages 36 to 60 months (20 girls, 19 boys) in a university child development laboratory. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Snack portions eaten and wasted and time for eating. ANALYSIS: Data were analyzed using a 2 3 6 factorial analysis of variance, with snack form (cute or regular) and snack components as the 2 factors. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in children’s snack consumption or waste between cute and regular versions of snacks. It took children an average of 2 minutes longer to eat the cute snacks.

The abstract doesn’t specify what counts as “cute.” But now I want a steak cut to look like a dinosaur.

HT: NCBI ROFL

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