Designing Products For Kids
January 1996 -- Applications

By: Lynn A. Kuntz
Associate Editor*
*(Editor since August 1996)

  Those of us with children know from experience that they often play a major role in food purchasing decisions. Whether it's the toddler in the shopping cart, the fourth-grader at the candy counter, or the teenager at the local fast-food joint, they all influence how the food dollar is spent.

  This perception is borne out by figures. The market for kids' food and beverage products has been pegged at $65 billion -- not exactly play money. In this country there are 38 million consumers aged 12 and under.

  "The food industry is starting to focus on the next group of consumers, Generation Y, the group between 13 and 18 years old," says Barbara McMillan, marketing manager, McCormick & Co., Hunt Valley, MD. "It only makes up about 9% of the population, but they have so much spending power. That's where they start to have their own income."

  Designing products for kids is not child's play. A number of issues must be addressed to make certain that the products appeal not only to the child but also to the adult who may control the purse strings.

A sense of taste

  "Children have a big impact on family food shopping, whether it's because they are physically pointing products out or because the parent thinks, 'I'll get this because this is the product that my child will eat,'" says Carole Pollock, director of product development, Beck Flavors, St. Louis. "(Parents) won't buy whole wheat cereal if the kids don't like it. They'll get a frosted cereal."

  The biggest factor in food acceptance by children is taste. Children exhibit a number of taste preferences that play a major role in the selection of food. The most obvious one is a preference for sweet foods. This is not surprising in light of studies that indicate the taste for sugars seems to be inborn. Babies will preferentially consume a sweetened solution to one without sugar. Breast milk contains a higher level of sugar than cow's milk. Many of children's first "regular" foods and the most widely accepted ones tend to be sweet fruits and juices.

  Scientists debate whether this is a nature or nurture issue, often theorizing that the more sweets consumed, the greater the preference. For example, Gary Beauchamp, Ph.D., of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, conducted a study that demonstrated that an infant's preference for sugar water needed to be maintained by feeding it a sugar solution. Without it, the relative acceptance of the sweetened water diminished.

  A child's preference for salt seems less clear cut. Newborns do not show a preference for salt. That develops at about four months of age. A number of nutritionists take this as a sign that salt preferences are a matter of conditioning. Others look at it as a natural age-related development. Most studies reveal that children favor relatively salty foods. One found that preschoolers generally prefer saltier soup than adults.

  In general, kids like some acidity but not excessive sourness. One exception is pickles, and several super-sour candy products are popular. However, sour products usually don't appeal to the very young; more often than not a toddler will choose apple juice over a more acidic type of beverage such as lemonade.

  Children also exhibit an aversion to bitter tastes, which commonly manifests itself in a dislike for certain vegetables such as spinach or broccoli.

  "There are classical studies with babies where they try a number of different flavors and (the babies) really do prefer sweet flavors," says Joanne Slavin, Ph.D., professor and director of graduate studies for nutrition at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul. "The ones that were fed (samples) with bitter compounds reacted by making these really awful faces. However, I'm a firm believer in the concept that if you expose kids to different foods, they eventually like them."

  Many believe that children do not like hot or spicy foods. This may be true in some cases, but it appears that most of these preferences come from familiarity with a particular food rather than an innate preference. The one exception might be spices that give a bitter taste. Manufacturers do not add cayenne to baby foods. Yet, it isn't uncommon to see toddlers enjoying hot salsa.

  "Teens will not experiment with the herbal flavors; they would almost prefer something bland," says McMillan. "But they do like to experiment with hot dishes: Mexican food, chilies and salsas."

  Flavors that appeal to children differ from those preferred by adults. Fruit flavors, such as the currently popular watermelon, generate a candy-like character rather than fresh notes. Children, especially young ones, often eat combinations of foods or flavors that would not appeal to adults: applesauce combined with peas; hot dogs and chocolate sauce; ketchup with carrots. On the other hand, often they reject combinations of food mixed together, such as stews.

See me, feel me

  Taste and flavor are not the only product characteristics that drive children's food preferences. Texture also plays an important role, and a number of factors influence texture preferences. The first is physical development. Infants can only consume liquids because they are only physically capable of sucking. Chewing does not begin until about six months of age, and it is not well developed until about 3 years of age. Potential choking in the very young is a hazard, especially with foods that are hard, slippery or a size that can lodge in the throat. Reducing the diameter of a hot dog from that of the adult version or creating small fruit or vegetable pieces is important for toddler products.

  Young children tend to prefer food that is easier to chew -- hamburgers rather than a fibrous steak, for example. This is not merely a matter of softness and hardness, but of chewing and swallowing.

  "Even older kids like smaller, thinner and softer food," McMillan points out. "A lot of them have braces, and they find it difficult to eat harder foods."

  Often texture preferences develop through familiarity or other influences besides physical ones. As infants get acclimated to solid foods, they usually follow a pattern of initially rejecting food with an unfamiliar texture. Older children like to eat a variety of textures, although not necessarily at the same time.

  Colorful foods appeal to children. A recent fad, especially in confections, was over-colored, mouth-staining products, but now neon colors are the rage.

  The shape of a food product often influences its acceptability. This can be a matter of physical development. Infants can hold foods in a pincer grasp and transfer them to their mouth at about nine months. A young child does not develop sufficient motor control to manipulate eating utensils easily until age 5 or 6. During this period "finger foods" are popular since they facilitate the eating process and appeal to a young child's developing sense of autonomy. (The dreaded "Me do it!" phase.) That same sense of autonomy also applies to older children.

  "When you think of products designed for children, the first thing that comes to mind are things like candy, snacks and breakfast cereals," observes McMillan. "But microwave products appeal to them, too. They are very microwave savvy and like to make their own breakfast and lunches. A lot of those products serve as hot snacks in between meals, too."

  Remember biting the heads off animal cookies? Playing with food often appeals to children. A sense of "play value," particularly in younger age brackets, increases product appeal. Character shapes are popular, as are other shapes that encourage a child's interest. A parent may be less than thrilled to wait for a child to eat every pasta letter in order, but what small child would rather eat plain, flat noodles?

  "Some people say they don't think children should be playing with their food, but that helps to get them interested in food," says Slavin.

  While shaped foods are popular, they are not always easy to manufacture. This concept is limited to food that can be extruded, cut, or formed in some type of die. Excessive detail often equals problems. Corners break, food sticks to the die and will not unmold, and irregular shapes tend to process and package poorly, especially in automated systems.

  These issues can be overcome through formulation -- for example, by developing formulas that minimize stickiness or breakage, or resist change when heated. They may be process issues that involve temperature, speed, or the best design and coating for the forming equipment. The product designer must address all of these matters if the resulting product is to look like Frankenstein instead of The Blob.

  Character-shaped foods appeal to younger children. Shapes also influence older children, although possibly not to the same degree. Acceptance scores would be higher on a product shaped like some aquatic animal, for instance, than if the same product were cut into small circles no matter what the age level. While younger children may warm up to cuddly bears, preteens usually go for other concepts. A very popular line of food preparation toys is sold under the name Dr. Dreadful. The toys claim the results look gross, taste great. Luckily, this trend seems confined to novelty items. We can only hope there isn't a market out there for cockroach-shaped chicken nuggets.

  "It's critical to position the product for the appropriate age group," advises Jean Kuster, product manager, dairy, at Beck Flavors. "The preferences of the 6- to 9-year-old group are much different than those of teenagers. A teenager will not want a Pocahontas product, and some wild, off-the-wall concept will probably not appeal to a 6-year-old."

The parent track

  Parents play a significant role in what their children eat. Therefore, it's important to incorporate the factors the parents deem important. Good nutrition tops the list, right? Not so, according to a recent study conducted by the National Dairy Council which queried a number of health-care professionals. When parents ranked the importance to them of a number of factors that influence their children's eating habits, nutritional content placed fourth, after taste, convenience and price.

  Taste being in the No. 1 spot isn't news. As mentioned earlier, if a food doesn't taste good, it doesn't get eaten. Upon reflection, the other results don't seem surprising, either. Convenience has become big business. Many parents don't have time for elaborate food preparation regimes. Takeout pizza becomes a more sensible option than a pot roast dinner. Lunch meat and cracker trays, baby peeled carrots and aseptic drink boxes are a boon to parents hurrying to make lunch.

  Cost? Families with children must spend more to feed those extra mouths -- especially if the household contains teenage boys. Consequently, the heads of these households may have less money to spend on premium items compared with singles and couples. In the lower economic strata, if the choice is enough food or too little nutritional food, not too many parents would let their families go hungry.

  "We sometimes forget cost is a big factor until we do some focus group on why people don't eat more fruits and vegetables. We find out that for a lot of people, they are just too expensive," observes the University of Minnesota's Slavin.

  While nutrition came in fourth in the survey, that doesn't mean parents dismiss it. In the same survey, nutritional content received a higher score when it was a factor in the children's diets than when it was a factor in the diet of the average American adult. So it makes sense to keep good nutrition in mind when designing foods for children.

  "A lot of products designed for kids reflect an interest in nutrition," says Kuster. "Parents are looking for products that have nutrition merit -- beverages fortified with vitamin C, for example. That can drive their purchasing decisions."

Nutrition, kid style

  "Kid's today are pretty health conscious," remarks McMillan. "They know what the food pyramid is. They may not be counting fat grams, but they will pick up the packages and look at the amount of fat in a product."

  Children's nutrition, like children's tastes and eating habits, is not the same as for adults. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines issued by the Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services currently use the same standards for everyone over 2 years of age. However, most experts agree that the requirements vary by age and by gender. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has recommended changes to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for children. These are likely to mirror the National Research Council Recommended Dietary Allowances from the Food and Nutrition Board, National Academy of Sciences; examples of which are listed in the accompanying table.

  Because the nutritional needs of children are not as well understood as those of adults, a number of misconceptions have sprung up regarding the food they eat. While the validity of some of these concerns can be questioned, they do affect how a significant number of consumers view a food product, and so they should be considered in the development process. Just keep in mind that no product can create or solve all nutritional woes.

  Fat consumption is the No. 1 health concern of adults, and the same concern has sprung up about the fat consumption of children. Some organizations and nutritionists have advocated drastic cuts in fat intake for children, some as low as 20% or less of the calories from fat. But fat, and even cholesterol, are essential for a child's metabolism, especially during rapid growth periods. Severe restrictions of fat can cause growth failure.

  For children, the primary nutritional goals are growth and development. The two most rapid growth phases occur in infancy and adolescence. During these periods a child has high nutritional needs.

  The recommended guidelines for fat consumption by the American Academy of Pediatrics is approximately 30% of the diet as fat calories and approximately 300 mg of cholesterol for children 2 years and older. Health Canada and the Canadian Pediatric Society recommend no fat restriction in nutritious foods and a gradual reduction throughout childhood to 30% after linear growth has ceased. Infants' fat needs are higher still. The caloric content of breast milk consists of about 50% from fat, and most commercial infant formulas mimic this level.

  Unless the products are designed for the very young it probably makes sense in many products to target the fat calorie level at about 30%. Most specialists view this as a happy medium for the average child.

  "There's no data at all on what a particular type of fat does to a child," observes Slavin. "I'm even not convinced a child's cholesterol level matters a great deal. If a child is only consuming fat at a 30% level during a growth spurt, that's probably not adequate. They would probably be better off closer to 40%. But then you counter that with the concern over the level of obesity in children, which is a big problem. You can't just make a blanket statement that it's fine to consume high levels of fat."

  Obesity is the most important nutrition issue facing children, according to the National Dairy Council's survey of health care professionals. The culprit is a combination of excess calorie consumption and lack of exercise. However, those polled indicated that increased exercise was one of the most important ways to help improve childhood nutrition.

  The National Dairy Council's survey also listed sugar as a dietary concern. Whether this is because of calorie and nutritional concerns, because of a perceived link between sugar and hyperactivity, or the very real connection between sugar and dental caries is not clear.

  While a number of recent studies have debunked the myth that sugar causes attention deficit disorder, or hyperactivity, in children, many parents still believe it. A well publicized 1994 article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed no evidence exists that sugar or artificial sweeteners can turn a healthy child into a hyperactive one. Some theories still point to food ingredients as the culprit, especially foods containing salicylates, artificial colors and flavors, and BHA and BHT. Scientific evidence to back these theories up seems sketchy.

  Other dietary considerations that frequently concern health professionals include the lack of certain nutrients in children's diets. Some of the major areas of concern are lack of calcium, fiber and iron, particularly in teenage girls. Because these problems involve specific nutrients, they can be addressed through formulation -- either by adding ingredients that provide high levels of these nutrients, or through supplementation.

  "Children need a lot of nutrients per body weight," says Slavin. "That can be hard for a parent to think about. A serving size for a young toddler may be one tablespoon. But that doesn't mean that everything has to be fortified. As a nutritionist, we talk in terms of eating a wide variety of foods. With that, fortification isn't really necessary. But a lot of kids don't eat that way, so you have to consider the best way to get them consuming the right levels of nutrients. Fiber is a good example. When you look at kids' diets, many get no fiber at all, so fortification makes a lot of sense."

  "It's usually the people that care the most and already have the best diets that buy supplements and fortified foods," Slavin continues. "Delivering nutrition to the kids who really need it is a big problem. People have concerns about fortification in so-called junk foods, but if they're economical, it's probably not such a bad idea."

Taking the test

  Once the formulation issues have been resolved, the last step is to determine whether the product will actually be a hit with kids. A number of standard research techniques that work with adults will work with children, but often modifications are necessary to obtain valid information from kids.

  The first consideration is the age of the target group. The older they are, the more likely that standard test procedures will work. A study done at the University of Pennsylvania indicates the types of tests appropriate for various age levels. Most test methods were unsuccessful for children under the age of 4, except a paired comparison test. Children over the age of 4 were able to participate successfully in more complex tests such as hedonic scaling. Children age 6 and over were capable of performing discrimination tests such as paired comparison, duo-trio, and ranking of intensity. Difficulties arise because there is a wide variation in development and ability in any of these age groups.

  "We like to work with two age groups: 8 to 12, and 12 to 17," says Beverly Kroll, president, Peryam and Kroll, Chicago. "With the older group, you really don't have to treat them as kids, but you have to modify some techniques for the younger group. I actually prefer to use 10-year-olds because often the 8-year-olds are not articulate enough and they require a little more hand-holding. We have found that there's not much difference between the preferences of an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old. With 6- to 8-year-olds you definitely need a one-on-one interview. Testing children under 6 for anything quantified is difficult."

  Although the techniques are similar to those used for adults, some modifications -- especially in the types of responses -- can help make it easier for children to respond.

  "With most of the older kids we use a nine-point hedonic scale," says Julie Birschoff, sensory analyst, McCormick & Co. "At the middle school age we'll use the Peryam and Kroll scale. The numeric scales are the same, but the wording is more kid-friendly -- using terms like 'a whole bunch' instead of 'extremely.' Depending on the age group you can use symbols. Some researchers use smiley faces and frowns, and for slightly older children, stars to indicate the degree of liking."

  Focus groups are often useful, but there may be different group dynamics at work than encountered with adult groups.

  "There's a lot of trial and error involved to make sure you get meaningful responses," points out Birschoff. "When we do focus groups, in some cases we find it's better to separate girls and boys. In group situations you have a lot of peer pressure, especially if the opposite sex are present. Not that it doesn't happen with adults, but with kids it's a little more pronounced."

  Details can make a difference. Children accompanied by parents do not make good test subjects. The parent can knowingly or unknowingly cause children to generate responses that they would not make alone. A skilled moderator is essential to keep the discussion on track because children are more prone to stray from the subject, or even stop responding and start playing.

  "We don't use people in white lab coats with kids," states Kroll. "The person who escorts the children back to the test room has to be a certain kind of person -- friendly, and someone who can make the children comfortable.

  "The biggest problem is that some people don't give these kids a lot of credit," Kroll continues. "They hover over them, they treat them like babies, and they can misconstrue the data. Body language can affect the data. We let the child try it on their own and only step in if they are having problems."

  As with any other food product, designing a kids' product is a matter of appealing to the customer.

  "Parents are influenced by past experiences with a product," says Kuster. "If their children don't like a product, they are not likely to buy it again."

More than Just Ingredients

  Other factors that are not directly related to the food product but still influence children's food choices include the following: