Can one word or an emoji change a child’s food choice?

As most parents quickly realize, even young children can clearly express what they like and what they don't. Yet relatively little behavioral research is conducted with children 6-9 years old, not only because of the ethical challenges but also because of the need to adapt tests and tasks to a demographic still learning to read and write.

Precisely this age group is essential to study because their eating habits are still forming, so their choices now can make the difference between better or worse health later.

Together with colleagues in the US and UK,  Prof.Ružica Brečić published a study of children in this age group, in which we combined several child-friendly methods to ask, "Can a simple emoticon or single word make a child more likely to choose a healthier snack?" They found that associating healthier foods with simple cues such as healthy and tasty or emojis such as a smile, heart or flexed bicep can nudge children to choose them over unhealthy alternatives.

However, these cues do not work equally well for every child. Their impact depends on the child's attitudes toward food and, to a smaller extent, on how much the child knows about healthy and unhealthy foods. Knowledge about healthy food is not enough: perceptions, conscious and unconscious, also matter.

These insights may help us plan better campaigns to encourage healthier eating among children, which in turn might set them up for healthier adulthood. More broadly, this study highlights that if we want to design effective interventions that support healthier decisions, whether about food or other things, we first need to understand how children decide—what they notice, how they interpret messages, and which cues in their environment influence them.

This research was funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU under Call IIP-581-2025 (GAMEHEALTH).

You can read the full article here. 

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