• Children’s nutrition faces systemic challenges that education alone hasn’t solved. Food environments, marketing, and social pressures undermine healthy choices, leaving malnutrition and obesity widespread and persistent.
• Social marketing reframes healthy eating by borrowing persuasive tools from industry—like mascots, influencers, emotional cues—to make fruits and vegetables exciting and aspirational, directly countering manipulative junk food advertising.
• Choice architecture reshapes environments so that healthy foods are the easy, visible, and default option, aligning children’s choices with long-term wellbeing without removing freedom of choice.
• Social norms can be flipped by leveraging peer influence, modeling, and cultural pride campaigns, making nutritious foods feel not exceptional but normal, desirable, and socially rewarding.

Around the globe, children’s diets have changed dramatically in the past 70 years. The rise of fast food chains, ultra-processed foods, and endless choices has transformed food from simple fuel to a potential health risk. Back in the 1950s, for example, only 11% of children in the UK drank soft drinks or fruit juice.⁴ By 1990, that figure had risen to 90% and 36%, respectively. In addition to sending little ones bouncing off the walls, correlational studies have shown that excessive sugar intake can affect neuron function and cause increased levels of inflammation in the brain.⁶ To curb people’s overconsumption, various governments around the globe have introduced tariffs on high-sugar products and placed bans on the sale of unhealthy food products to children under a certain age. And these initiatives seem to work; following the UK’s introduction of the “sugar tax” in 2016, daily consumption of sugar reduced by 5g on average per child.⁵

Conversely, attempts to improve children’s nutrition by focusing solely on education or awareness often fail. Telling a child (or their parent) that vegetables are good for them does little if vegetables are less visible, less convenient, or less affordable than snacks engineered to be irresistible. Moreover, past interventions have often failed to recognize that small structural barriers can completely derail good intentions. For example, the UK Government’s “5 A Day” campaign, launched in 2003, increased awareness of the importance of eating fruit and vegetables. However, the program had only a modest effect on actual fruit and vegetable consumption. Other factors, like prices, availability, and competing marketing, limited the campaign’s effectiveness, showing that information alone cannot overcome structural and behavioral barriers.²² 

For many children, their food choices are driven by what’s on offer. In 2005, UK chef Jamie Oliver launched a nationwide campaign to improve the quality and nutritional value of school meals, leading to a ban on junk foods like “turkey twizzlers” in some areas.³ The idea was simple; if kids are only offered healthy options, they’ll choose healthy options. But kids don’t live their entire lives in controlled environments like school. Every minute of every day, they’re exposed to a multitude of influences around food choices. 

And therein lies the problem: choice. While we may like to believe that we’re fully autonomous beings capable of making our own informed decisions, that’s sadly not the case. Whether we like it or not, our choices around what to eat and drink are shaped by a range of social, behavioral, and economic factors—and children are even more susceptible to these influences than adults.  

Children are among the most targeted consumers in the global food marketplace. From the moment they turn on the television, scroll through a device, or walk into a grocery store, they are met with products specifically engineered to capture their attention. These are not simply ads but sophisticated behavioral triggers designed to exploit children’s cognitive biases. 

Ever considered why the logos of fast food giants such as McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s all feature red and yellow? It’s because of color psychology, or the way different colors influence human perception, emotion, and behavior. Bright reds, yellows, and other high-contrast colors dominate packaging, logos, and marketing content because they are attention-grabbing and signal excitement.⁷ More specifically, red is associated with urgency and yellow with happiness—combine the two and you have the perfect visual stimulus for fast food. Similarly, cartoon mascots like the iconic Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes or Chester the Cheetah from Cheetos have long served as trusted “friends,” softening parental resistance while building brand loyalty from an early age.⁸ The use of alliteration in these characters’ names makes them all the more memorable for young minds.⁹ 

Research demonstrates just how early and deeply these cues take hold among children. One classic study, conducted by researchers at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, found that preschool children were able to recognize the McDonald’s logo before they could even read, illustrating how brand identity is imprinted at an early age.¹³ Other experiments have shown that simply exposing children to food advertising—even for a few minutes—can increase their immediate snack consumption, regardless of hunger.¹⁴ In other words, the effects are not just long-term shifts in preference, but direct impacts on how much children eat in the moment.

The challenge facing caregivers and policymakers isn’t just that these marketing techniques work extraordinarily well; it’s that they’re almost always used for products high in sugar, fat, and salt. How many famous mascots do you know that have promoted healthy children’s snacks? And what colors do you associate with kids’ vegetable or fruit snacks? Caregivers may wish to prioritize balanced diets, but their efforts are continually undermined by ubiquitous cues that make children crave less nutritious foods. This isn’t simply a matter of poor willpower or a lack of knowledge among parents and caregivers. Rather, it’s the outcome of a deliberately engineered environment in which healthy choices are invisible or boring, while junk food is framed as exciting, social, and fun.
At its core, marketing leverages several behavioral principles, including salience, heuristics, and affective priming. Children are especially susceptible to these because their executive control (the set of mental skills that help us regulate our thoughts and actions) and critical reasoning (the ability to think logically, weigh evidence, and make considered judgments) are still developing.¹¹ A bright red package or a smiling mascot exploits System 1 thinking—automatic, emotional responses that bypass rational decision-making.¹²  Interventions that fail to account for this behavioral imbalance risk leaving caregivers locked in constant battles, and policymakers perpetually reactive.

In low- and middle-income countries, multinational food companies flood the market with child-focused campaigns, outcompeting fresh produce in visibility and desirability.¹⁰ When you combine this with the challenges that impact families on lower budgets or those facing food insecurity, unhealthy options often prevail. Past interventions have often fallen short by relying on educational and awareness-raising campaigns alone, assuming that rational appeals (“Eat your greens for vitamins!”) would counteract highly emotional marketing strategies or structural challenges. Unsurprisingly, these approaches often don’t succeed because we rarely make rational decisions based solely on information, especially when it comes to food. 

If companies have perfected the art of persuasive marketing for less nutritious options, the opportunity lies in co-opting these same techniques for healthier choices. Social marketing, which uses commercial marketing tools to promote positive social and health outcomes, offers a way to compete on equal terms. Rather than asking parents and children to fight the tide, this approach reframes nutritious foods as desirable, convenient, and aspirational. Crucially, it recognizes that children’s food choices are not made in a vacuum; they are heavily shaped by the cues and signals in their environment. This means that if marketers can make sugar-laden cereals appear fun, exciting, and rewarding, the same methods can also be used to elevate fruits, vegetables, and other healthy options.

Social marketing has already proven its power with adults, showing just how much potential it holds for shaping children’s diets. A recent systematic review of 33 interventions found that when campaigns borrowed commercial marketing tactics—like tailoring messages to specific audiences, using multiple communication channels, and weaving in emotionally engaging stories—they could shift adults’ eating habits in meaningful ways.¹⁷ This included boosting fruit and vegetable intake and cutting down on sugary drinks. The effects weren’t always dramatic or long-lasting, but the fact that entrenched adult routines could be moved at all is significant. If decades of habits can be nudged by clever marketing, then the same tools stand an even better chance of influencing children, who are naturally more impressionable and more responsive to cues in their environment. 

One example of social marketing in action is UNICEF’s First Foods Initiative, currently being implemented in West and Central Africa.¹⁵ In this region, more than 80 percent of children aged 6–23 months fail to meet minimum dietary diversity, and millions experience severe food poverty, consuming only one or two food groups a day. As part of the initiative, UNICEF launched a campaign to improve complementary feeding practices for infants and young children, which acknowledged that parents are not only influenced by medical guidance or nutritional facts but also by the emotional and social associations surrounding food. First Foods uses common marketing tactics, such as positive imagery, bright colors, and culturally resonant messaging, to make diverse, healthy foods appealing both to caregivers and children. In other words, rather than presenting healthy foods as a duty, the campaign frames them as symbols of love, strength, and aspiration—foods that help children grow and thrive. 

Mascots, another common marketing tool, also offer a promising avenue. These characters work so well that, under regulatory pressure, Kellogg’s and other companies scaled back their use in some markets. In Mexico, Chile, and other countries in Latin America, “Toño el Tigre” (as he’s known locally) was banned from supermarket aisles. This move was accompanied by clear nutritional labeling and “STOP” signs on products with high fat, sugar, and salt content. In Chile, early evaluations showed some shifts in consumer behavior—families reported buying fewer products with warning labels—but the overall impact on childhood obesity rates has been less clear, with no immediate reductions observed.¹⁶

But rather than banning mascots, why not leverage their power? Child-friendly characters could just as easily be deployed to champion fruit, vegetables, or whole grains. Imagine a lively mascot encouraging children to snack on an apple, or a cast of animated characters making pulses and legumes exciting. These figures appeal to the automatic, emotional side of children’s decision-making, and if aligned with health goals, could make nutritious foods feel just as fun and rewarding as their sugary counterparts.

Public health campaigns and NGOs have an opportunity to be just as innovative and persuasive as multinational food companies. By combining emotional resonance with behavioral insights—such as salience, habit formation, and social proof—healthy eating can be framed as the exciting and rewarding choice. Supermarkets, for instance, could adopt brighter, child-friendly displays for fresh produce; schools could introduce playful campaigns that celebrate trying new foods; and public–private partnerships might recruit popular influencers to model healthy eating online.

In short, marketing has long been one of the greatest barriers to improving children’s nutritional choices. But it is also one of the greatest untapped resources. By reclaiming the tools of persuasion—colors, mascots, characters, stories, and emotional cues—social marketing can proactively shape the environments in which children make decisions, ensuring that the signals they encounter most often are those that guide them toward healthier, more sustainable diets.

Even the most well-intentioned caregiver can find themselves undermined by the environments in which children make their food choices. Whether in school cafeterias, supermarkets, or even at home, the structure of these settings often nudges children toward unhealthy options by default. Choice architecture—the way in which choices are presented and organized—plays a critical but often invisible role in shaping what children ultimately consume. Unfortunately, in most contexts, the architecture is stacked against healthy eating.

Consider the cafeteria line. In many schools, chips, fries, or sugary drinks are prominently displayed at eye level, while fruits and vegetables are either hidden at the end of the line or served in less appealing ways. Schools know what kids want to eat, and so in a bid to make a profit, they make these products readily available. Studies show that simply placing desserts first in a cafeteria queue increases the likelihood they will be chosen, even if healthier options are available just a few steps later.¹⁹ Similarly, supermarket checkout aisles are dominated by candy, sugary beverages, and salty snacks. A study of supermarkets in California found that 70% of products displayed at checkouts were unhealthy.¹⁸ The placement of these products is no coincidence: stores know that adults make impulse purchases while waiting, and that nagging children can be very persuasive. 

Then there’s the decoy effect.²³ Picture yourself in line at the cinema. You’ve set a spending limit and plan to order a small popcorn for $3. But then you notice the pricing: the medium is $6.50, while the large is only $7. Even though you, or your child, don’t need that much popcorn, the small suddenly feels like poor value, and the large seems like a bargain. The medium, priced just below the large, is never really meant to be chosen. Instead, it’s there to steer you toward the option the cinema most wants you to buy—the oversized bucket. This is another behavioral technique that’s leveraged by companies to manipulate consumers’ choices, pushing them to buy and eat more in the pursuit of profit. 

In these contexts, when the unhealthy option (or the unhealthy option in its biggest form) is the easiest or best value option, it often becomes the only option. From a behavioral science perspective, this challenge reflects predictable human tendencies. We are biased toward status quo choices (default bias), swayed by what is most salient (availability heuristic), and prone to making decisions based on convenience rather than long-term benefit (present bias). That is, we gravitate toward the path of least resistance.²⁰ Children, with their still-developing executive control and limited ability to delay gratification,²¹ are even more susceptible to these heuristics. Unless interventions grapple with these behavioral drivers alongside structural challenges, healthy eating will remain the harder, less likely choice.

The same behavioral principles that make choice architecture a challenge also make it a powerful opportunity. Like social marketing, choice architecture can be turned around for social good. In other words, if the environment can nudge children toward unhealthy foods, then it can just as easily be restructured to nudge them toward healthier ones. By redesigning the context in which food decisions are made, healthy options can become the easy, attractive, and default choice.

Cafeterias are perhaps the clearest arena for such interventions. The “Smarter Lunchrooms” movement deploys low-cost changes in school cafeteria environments that aim to nudge students toward healthier eating, without removing choice.²⁷ Some of the tactics include making healthy options more convenient (e.g., placing fruit at the start of the line), improving visibility (bright, eye-level displays; attractive signage), and using suggestive prompts that make healthy options seem standard (e.g., verbal encouragement from cafeteria staff such as “would you like to try an apple?”). After the Smarter Lunchroom makeover, students at the schools were 13% more likely to take fruits and 23% more likely to take vegetables. And students didn’t just take the food, they ate it as well; fruit and vegetable consumption rose by 18% and 25%, respectively. The intervention reportedly took just a few hours and cost less than USD $50 per school to install many of the environmental changes.

The program leverages what’s known as “libertarian paternalism,” a concept from behavioral economics popularized by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their 2008 book, Nudge.²⁵  It’s the idea that policymakers or institutions can steer people toward better decisions (paternalism) while still preserving freedom of choice (libertarian). In the context of kids’ meal choices, they can still choose chips or soda (and some probably still will), but the environment makes it easier, more attractive, and more “normal” to pick fruit and vegetables.

Defaults are another critical lever. When water or milk is offered as the default drink in children’s meal bundles, with sugary drinks available only upon request, the majority of families stick with the healthier option.²⁴ A study of the restaurant chain Silver Diner found that after introducing healthier default sides and beverages, children’s meal orders containing fruits, vegetables, and low-fat milk increased significantly. Similarly, portion sizes can be designed to make healthier foods the norm: smaller plates for desserts, larger bowls for fruit salad. 

In supermarkets, replacing candy at checkout aisles with fruit, nuts, or low-sugar snacks has already been trialed in several European countries with positive results. The principle is simple: if children are most likely to beg for a snack in the final moments before checkout, let that snack at least be a healthier one. In the UK, several supermarket chains—including Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, and The Co-operative—voluntarily removed candy and sugary drinks from checkout aisles. Research shows this policy reduced impulse purchases of less healthy snacks and even eased the burden of “pester power,” as parents reported less stress from children demanding sweets at the tills.²⁶

From a behavioral science perspective, the effectiveness of these interventions lies in their alignment with human psychology. They reduce friction for healthy choices, increase the salience of nutritious foods, and harness the power of defaults. Rather than asking children to think rationally about vitamins and minerals—which, let’s be honest, is never going to happen—they make the healthy option the automatic option. Importantly, these approaches also maintain freedom of choice—parents and children can still opt for less healthy foods, but the architecture gently guides them elsewhere. This freedom of choice is important for helping families maintain a healthy relationship with food and recognizing that all types of food—including sugar, fats, and salt—are necessary in moderation. 

Children do not make food choices in isolation. They eat among peers and family members, and their decisions are powerfully shaped by what feels normal within these social contexts. Social norms and habits create invisible pressures that can either reinforce healthy eating or lock children into patterns of poor nutrition. In many contexts, the prevailing norms are stacked against healthy diets.

One challenge is how foods are framed and rewarded within households. In many families, “treats” like sweets and crisps are used as incentives for good behavior, cementing the idea that unhealthy foods are a reward. This habit, repeated across thousands of mealtimes, creates powerful associations that persist into adulthood. Research shows that children given food as a reward are more likely to prefer and overconsume those foods later.²⁸ Conversely, when parents pressure children to eat vegetables (“just one more bite”), children often develop negative associations that reduce liking for those foods.²⁹ When the two are combined—with unhealthy “treat” food being a reward for finishing healthier, but less desirable food—the difference between the two is exacerbated. 

Peers, both in person and online, exert another major influence. Eating is a social act, and children are acutely attuned to what their friends are doing. Studies demonstrate that when children observe classmates eating vegetables, they are more likely to try them themselves.³⁴ This effect, sometimes called social modeling or modeling of behavior, can cut both ways: if the group is eating chips and soda, an individual child is less likely to reach for water or fruit. Child influencers on social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram have also significantly increased the consumption of junk food.³⁵ In one study conducted in Austria, 67 percent of the products presented in videos from child and youth influencers did not meet the World Health Organization’s basic nutrient profile model.³⁸ Because many young people view these online personalities as their close friends, they have a desire to mimic their habits and choices.

Who children eat with can also influence their eating habits. A study of preschool children in Michigan, United States, looked at how group size affects how children eat.³³ They found that when children ate snacks in a larger group of nine classmates, they ate more quickly and consumed 30% more food than when they were in a smaller group of three. The effect was especially strong when snack time was longer—children in large groups kept eating more, while those in small groups did not. Interestingly, the children in large groups actually talked and interacted less, suggesting that the excitement of being in a bigger group made them focus more on eating. 

Cultural norms also play a critical role in children’s nutritional choices. In some contexts, ultra-processed snacks are seen as modern, aspirational, or convenient compared to traditional foods. For example, a qualitative study of urban middle-class families in India found that processed foods often function as status symbols, with fast-food chains perceived as “trendy,” “Western,” and hygienic places for young people to socialize.³¹ Similarly, in parts of Africa, Coca-Cola has been woven into everyday life not just as a drink, but as an expression of modernity and self-determination, demonstrating how branded packaged goods can accrue cultural prestige and symbolic value.³² 

This creates an uphill battle for public health campaigns promoting healthy local alternatives, which can be perceived as old-fashioned or less desirable. Similarly, cultural norms around family gatherings, celebrations, and traditional customs can exacerbate unhealthy eating. In Mexico, a study by the National Institute of Public Health found that families encourage unhealthy eating during special events.³⁰ The greatest culprits were grandparents who often allow children to eat high-energy, low-nutritional foods. 

From a behavioral science perspective, the challenge lies in the power of descriptive norms (“what most people do”) and injunctive norms (“what people approve of”). Children’s developing self-concept makes them especially sensitive to these cues. When the norm is soft drinks at every birthday party, or when advertising portrays unhealthy foods as fun and socially desirable, children absorb the message that these are the foods everyone eats and approves of. 

Just like marketing and choice architecture, social norms can also be reversed to promote healthier nutritional choices. By harnessing peer influence, reframing food norms, and embedding healthy foods into daily routines, interventions can create positive ripple effects that reshape habits at scale. 

In schools, programs that deliberately use “food champions” or role models can normalize healthier foods, making them socially desirable rather than stigmatized. As children start to form identities in relation to how their parents, family, and peers behave, it’s important to ensure they have positive role models, particularly around food. In the UK and Ireland, “The Food Dudes” program successfully combined cartoon hero role models with repeated tastings and rewards to increase children’s intake of fruit and vegetables.³⁶ Using educational letters and videos, the cartoon heroes demonstrate the benefits of eating healthy foods and show images of other children eating fruits and vegetables. This is also combined with food champions within the school, such as teachers and older classmates. 

The results from the program clearly show that the approach works. Across Wolverhampton, UK, children increased their daily fruit and vegetable consumption by 54 percent and 48 percent, respectively. But the greatest gains were seen in students from poorer backgrounds—their consumption of fruit and vegetables across the day rose dramatically. 

Online influencers should also be considered as potential role models for children. Some have argued that they should be held accountable for the products they promote and that platforms and the food industry should do more to ensure young viewers are being positively influenced.³⁸ Although there are plenty of child nutrition influencers already targeting parents, reaching children directly may produce greater results. 

Schools are also an important venue for shifting cultural norms around healthier food choices. In contexts where packaged snacks and imported products are often seen as more modern or aspirational, school and community kitchen programs can reframe fresh, local produce as valuable, contemporary, and culturally proud. In Brazil, for example, the Quilombo do Campinho community participates in the national school feeding programme (PNAE), ensuring that children’s meals include produce grown by local farmers.³⁹ This not only increases access to fresh, traditional foods but also fosters pride in eating ingredients tied to community identity.

Similarly, in the United States, reservation schools in Montana have worked with the Indigikitchen initiative to incorporate Native recipes and local ingredients into school meals, supported by hands-on educational activities that connect children to their culinary heritage.⁴⁰ By positioning indigenous fruits, grains, and recipes not as outdated or second-best but as central to cultural identity and pride, such programs make children more willing to try them and, over time, more likely to integrate them into their everyday diets.

In short, while social norms and peer influence are major barriers to improving children’s nutrition, they are also one of the most powerful levers for change. When healthy eating becomes the default behavior children see around them—in families, schools, peer groups, and media—it ceases to be an exception and becomes simply what people do.

As promising as these interventions appear, it’s important to recognize their limitations. Campaigns that leverage marketing mascots and social media influencers can make healthy foods more appealing, but their impact may fade without ongoing reinforcement. This is especially true for one-off campaigns; while they may temporarily increase awareness or improve perceptions among young consumers, they are unlikely to lead to long-term, sustainable change without follow-up. And in a media landscape saturated with junk food advertising, public campaigns often struggle to compete, particularly when budgets are low. 

Choice architecture, meanwhile, can nudge children toward fruits and vegetables in cafeterias or supermarkets, but it cannot override structural issues like food deserts, affordability, or household stress. Similarly, efforts to shift norms through peer modeling or cultural reframing work best in controlled or well-supported environments, but less so when family habits or economic realities run in the opposite direction. Skeptics might argue that these solutions risk being “nudges at the margins”—that is, small-scale fixes that only tinker around the edges of a much bigger problem—in the face of global drivers like climate change, poverty, and multinational food marketing. And these are valid concerns. That’s why interventions must be seen not as perfect, immediate solutions, but as powerful complements to systemic policies. When realities and expectations are established from the start, interventions have a better chance of being viewed as a success. 

Children’s nutritional choices are not trivial matters of taste. Rather, they are shaped by powerful behavioral, social, and cultural forces. While on the surface we may see picky eaters or demanding children, what we’re actually witnessing is the result of an environment that systematically nudges children toward sugar, salt, and fat. Promoting nutrition in children is complicated by the relentless pull of marketing designed for young minds, the invisible architecture of food environments that makes unhealthy options the default, and the deeply ingrained habits and norms that reinforce poor diets. The road ahead involves harnessing social marketing to make healthy foods desirable, redesigning choice architecture to make them the easy option, and using peer influence and cultural pride to make them the normal option.

Childhood nutrition has lifelong consequences for growth, immunity, learning, and health, shaping not only children’s futures but also the resilience of societies. At a global level, malnutrition and childhood obesity already impose immense social and economic costs. Tackling these issues requires not only better food systems and stronger policies but also insights into the small, everyday decisions that add up to large-scale outcomes. Behavioral science offers a crucial piece of this puzzle, helping policymakers and practitioners design interventions that align with how children and families actually make choices in the real world.

Fulfilling this vision requires collaboration across public health, education, retail, and digital platforms, with behavioral science acting as the bond that brings them together. At The Decision Lab, we specialize in applying behavioral insights to tackle complex challenges like these. Partner with us to reimagine children’s food environments, design interventions that shift behavior at scale, and transform nutritional choices into a foundation for healthier, more equitable futures.

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Globally, we’re eating more meat than is considered healthy or sustainable, but getting people to switch to plant-based options is still a challenge. In this article, Kira Warje explores the challenges of promoting plant-based choices and some of the behaviorally-informed opportunities that can be leveraged to address this growing problem. 

Building Better Choices: How to Equip Students to Overcome Cognitive Biases

Children and adolescents are being asked to make increasingly complex choices at younger ages. Yet we’re not equipping them well enough with the decision-making skills to take on these responsibilities. In this article, we explore Decision Education and how interventions can empower students to make informed, value-aligned choices in an increasingly complex world.

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