If you’d like your children to actually eat the lunch you pack – get some stickers...

If you go to the trouble of packing a lunch or snack for your child – pack some stickers too...

Researchers at Yale University found that kids ate and enjoyed food more from a package decorated with cartoon characters. The experiment involved clear bags with an assortment of snacks such as graham crackers, fruit snacks and baby carrots. Some of those bags had been decorated with a sticker of Shrek, Dora the Explorer or Scooby Doo. More than half of the kids went for that bag first and even said it tasted better than the identical snack from a plain bag. 

The sticker trick was more effective on the sweeter snacks. Vegetables were a tough sell with the kids but fresh fruit is still ranked among the favorites in the snack department.