Popular Kids Movies Send Mixed Signals About Healthy Living and Obesity

An analysis of 20 of the top children's movies released between 2006-2010 suggests that the films send kids mixed messages about obesity and eating habits.

According to Dr. Eliana M. Perrin, an associate professor of pediatrics in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, the children's films glorify sedentary behavior like playing video games and watching TV, and glamorize exaggerated portion sizes and unhealthy snacks. Yet characters in the movies often chastise one another about their size and shape.

"These children's movies offer a discordant presentation about food, exercise and weight status, glamorizing unhealthy eating and sedentary behavior yet condemning obesity itself," Perrin said, going on to offer a few examples:

In the 2008 Dreamworks Animation feature "Kung-fu Panda," the title character, a panda aspiring to become a master martial artist, is told that he'll never make it because he has a "fat butt," "flabby arms" and a "ridiculous belly."

Another Dreamworks Animation movie from 2012, "Shrek the Third," features a character called Donkey being called "bloated roadside piñata" and told "you really should think about going on a diet."

Perrin and her colleagues published their research in the journal Obesity, providing statistics on the state of mixed food and healthy living messages the popular films are sending to children.

Each of the 20 films selected were "assessed for the prevalence of key nutrition and physical behaviors corresponding to the American Academy of Pediatrics' obesity prevention recommendations for families, prevalence of weight stigma, assessment of the segment as healthy, unhealthy or neutral, and free-text interpretations."

Twenty-six percent of the films that depicted food showed an exaggerated portion size, while 51 percent depicted unhealthy snacks and 19 percent featured sugar-sweetened beverages.

Other observations included that 40 percent of the movies showed characters watching TV, 35 percent depicted computer use and 20 percent showed characters playing video games.

Seventy percent of the movies included weight-related stigmatizing content, the researchers found. And movie segments that the researchers considered to be "unhealthy" outnumbered those considered to be "healthy" by 2-to-1.

"These popular children's movies had significant 'obesogenic' content, and most contained weight-based stigma," the researchers said in a statement. "They present a mixed message to children: promoting unhealthy behaviors while stigmatizing the behaviors' possible effects."

The movies listed below were included in the study: