Several European and U.S. reviews have established the link between food marketing and childhood obesity (EU Pledge, 2012; FTC, 2006;Persson, Soroko, Musicus & Lobstein, 2012), which has stimulated researchers to investigate the effects of the most prevalent child-targeted marketing technique: the use of endorsing characters. This systematic review of these studies (15 identified; participants age 3-12 years) focuses on three important questions: (a) Does a basic endorser effect exist?, (b) Is the strength of the endorsement effect influenced by endorser type?, and (c) Does the endorsement strength differ according to the type of food being promoted?Keywords: food, children, marketing, endorsement, characters, persuasion SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF CHILD-TARGETED FOOD ENDORSEMENT 3The Persuasiveness of Child-Targeted Endorsement Strategies: A Systematic Review It has been argued that advertising aimed at children (up to age 12) is "fundamentally unfair", because children lack an adult-like understanding of an advertisement's selling intent (Rozendaal, Buijzen, and Valkenburg, 2010, p. 86).However, food marketers employ many techniques in their promotions in order to grab children's attention and persuade them. The use of an endorser to promote products is one of the techniques most often used in food marketing to children (Boyland, Harrold, Kirkham & Halford, 2012). Friedman and Friedman (1979) discerned three types of endorsers: the celebrity 1 , the expert, or the typical consumer.Although all three are used to target children, this chapter provides an up-to-date systematic review of available insights into celebrity endorsement effects only, as this technique is particularly widely used to promote mainly unhealthy foods to children via TV, packaging and the Internet (e.g., Elliott, 2008; Boyland et al., 2012;Alvy & Calvert, 2008; Hebden, King & Kelly, 2010).The current review focuses on research conducted with children between the ages of 3 and 12 years because within these age limits there are large differences in children's susceptibility to (endorsement) advertising. As proposed by Rozendaal, Lapierre, Van Reijmersdal and Buijzen (2011), resisting persuasion not only requires conceptual and attitudinal advertising literacy, but also the ability to apply the former during advertising exposure. For children under 7 years old, their conceptual advertising knowledge is not yet fully developed, which makes them particularly 1 As well as famous people (typically in the field of entertainment or sport), this definition can also include fictional characters. These can either be licensed characters, in which case they are known outside of the endorsed product (e.g., a cartoon character known from a movie or series) or branded characters, which are created specifically to promote the brand and/or product (e.g., Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes; or Captain Birdseye, also known as Captain Iglo, for Birds Eye or Iglo frozen seafood products). SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF CHILD-TARGETED FOOD ENDORSEMENT 4vulnerable....

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Previous studies have demonstrated that portion sizes and food energy-density influence children's eating behavior. However, the potential effects of front-of-pack image-sizes of serving suggestions and sugar content have not been tested. Using a mixed experimental design among young children, this study examines the effects of image-size manipulation and sugar content on cereal and milk consumption. Children poured and consumed significantly more cereal and drank significantly more milk when exposed to a larger sized image of serving suggestion as compared to a smaller image-size. Sugar content showed no main effects. Nevertheless, cereal consumption only differed significantly between small and large image-sizes when sugar content was low. An advantage of this study was the mundane setting in which the data were collected: a school's dining room instead of an artificial lab. Future studies should include a control condition, with children eating by themselves to reflect an even more natural context.

In the EU Pledge, food and beverage companies voluntarily engage themselves to stop marketing unhealthy foods and beverages to children under age 12. However, children are increasingly exposed to online marketing promoting unhealthy foods and beverages. The main purpose of this paper was to verify whether Belgian and Dutch pledge members' child-targeting food websites actually comply to the guidelines of the EU Pledge. First, this paper describes the prominence of online marketing on 49 Belgian and Dutch child-targeting food websites and evaluates the nutrient content of the advertised foods and beverages. Second, it checks for the degree to which Belgian and Dutch food brands abide the EU Pledge. Results indicated that about 88.5% of the onlinepromoted products were unhealthy, whereas marketing features were still present at every website. The nutrient profile of the online-promoted foods and beverages did not differ significantly between pledge and non-pledge members. Only 8.2% of the websites used age blocks, whereas ad-break reminders were completely absent. We conclude that the food and beverage companies do not abide their vows: Children still have unlimited access to websites promoting unhealthy food.

Prior research has established that TV viewing and food marketing influence children's eating behavior. However, the potential impact of popular TV cooking shows has received far less attention. TV cooking shows may equally affect children's food selection and consumption by distributing both food cues and portion-size cues. In an experimental study, elementary school children were randomly exposed to a cooking show, that either did or did not display a portion-size cue, or a non-food TV show. Results showed that children used significantly more sugar on their pancakes, and consumed significantly more of the pancakes after watching a TV cooking show compared to a non-food TV show. However, observing a portion-size cue in a TV cooking show only influenced sugar selection in older children (5th grade), but not in younger children (1st grade). The findings suggest that food cues in TV cooking shows stimulate consumption by inducing food cravings in children. Actual portion-size cues only appeared to affect older children's food selection.