Spinach-eating comic character “Popeye the Sailor” and his bulging muscles have been a favourite with kids and a new study show that he has also encouraged them to eat vegetables.
A new study shows that children who regularly watched Popeye scoffing spinach before his animated bouts with his arch-rival Bluto, doubled their vegetable intake, the Telegraph reported online.
Popeye, created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. The youngsters, aged four and five, ate four portions of vegetables a day after watching the cartoon hero compared to two before the study, published in the journal Nutrition & Dietetics.
“We got the children planting vegetable seeds, taking part in fruit and vegetable tasting parties, cooking vegetable soup and watching Popeye cartoons,” said Professor Chutima Sirikulchayanonta, who led the research at Mahidol University in Bangkok.