Sweets such as cookies, cakes and chocolates occur eight times more frequently in children’s shows targeting girls compared to boys’ shows.

That is the finding of Cal State Fullerton College of Business and Economics Assistant Professor of Marketing Eric Setten, who together with T. Bettina Cornwell, his doctoral advisor at the University of Oregon, reviewed more than 1,000 hours of toy-tied media transcripts. The study, “Sugar coating cartoons for girls: Gender stereotypical themes and the use of food in toy-tied media,” appears in The Journal of Consumer Affairs.

“I was watching cartoons with my daughters, who were young at the time, and got inspired,” says Setten. “I noticed that in Barbie, My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop, there were a lot of baked goods, such as cupcakes and cookies. I didn’t remember seeing anything like that from the cartoons I watched as a kid, such as Transformers, Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters. I’m a girl dad and my coauthor is a boy mom, so we grew up in separate media landscapes and didn’t know what was on the other side until we had children. When we did the research, we found there wasn’t all that much food in boys’ shows, but lots of sweets in girls’ shows.”

Setten and Cornwell began their research through a traditional content analysis of recording and reviewing each individual episode. Later, they used automated text analysis to parse through the closed-captioned transcripts. Both methods complemented each other, revealing similar results.

“In the more traditional content analysis, we saw this strong food creation identity in the girls’ shows. Main characters were bakers or grew food or provided food for animals. A lot of times they used the food to show nurturance and friendship. When characters go out with their friends, they’ll have smoothies or sweetened beverages as they’re having fun and chatting with each other,” says Setten. “A lot also has to do with creating stories featuring domesticity as a major plot theme. Previous research has mentioned baking a birthday cake as the pinnacle of performative femininity. We’re starting to see some change such as DC Superhero Girls or some of the “magic girl” animes such as Sailor Moon Crystal. These shows feature more action and fewer cupcakes. But a lot of the girls’ shows still focus on friendship, nurturing and taking care of other people. The way that you enact that a lot of times is through plot lines where you’re giving them something to eat. Food is used as a prop to show that you care about someone.”

Setten’s research suggests various interventions to discourage the appearance of unhealthy eats in children’s programming, such as industry self-regulation, consumer awareness and legislation. But perhaps more important is incorporating models of positive behavior, such as the consumption of vegetables. And these positive models are more common in publicly-funded shows, such as those appearing on PBS (think Sesame Street) or internationally on BBC. For instance, there is currently an effort to tamp down on Cookie Monster’s hankering for cookies on Sesame Street. But even in publicly-funded children’s media, sweets tend to predominate.

“We need to be a little more conscious of how we equate food and love,” says Setten. “For guys, food is metaphorically used as fuel. Eat it, and then fight, and then refuel. But in the girls’ shows, we show food as a way to show love. And that is often enacted by giving someone something sweet. If you want to show someone you love them, you might give them chocolates or give them cookies or bake a cake for them. I’m worried associating food with love in this way can be somewhat problematic. Maybe we can switch the script so that food is love but it’s balanced. Kids have to have a balanced diet, and that’s what truly loving your children is. Eating vegetables and whole grains and proteins in addition to having a sweet occasionally. Otherwise, you are setting them up for diabetes later in life.”

Setten’s study on food and gender in children’s media is just one of a set of studies looking at differences in children’s media. Setten published another paper with fellow Cal State Fullerton Marketing Professor Steven Chen looking at emotional tones. That study revealed that boys’ shows are more negative, and girls’ shows are more positive. “We saw a lot more anger in boys’ shows while sadness was the only discrete negative emotion we saw more frequently in girls’ shows,” recalls Setten.

Next on Setten’s research agenda: examining the difference in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) words in boys’ vs. girls’ media. “Even though the boys’ shows have a lot more action and violence, they use a lot of scientific and technical language,” he observes. “It seems like every single show targeting boys is talking about DNA mutations or engineering problems. Even though a lot of it is science fiction, it does gear boys to think about problems in the sense of engineering solutions. In the girls’ shows, there’s a lot of magical thinking or using the power of friendship to overcome obstacles. The next project is to quantify that kind of scientific language and see how it compares in boys’ shows to girls’ shows.”

For more on marketing research and teaching at Cal State Fullerton, read more of our articles on CSUF marketing.