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Children find food in McDonald's packaging up to six times more appetising than the identical snacks in plain wrappers, research shows.

The study from 2008, designed to gauge the power of advertising, revealed that boys and girls as young as three found food tastier when they thought it was made by a big brand.

The phenomenon is not just restricted to fast foods, with youngsters finding that milk and carrots tastier when they believed they had been bought at McDonald's. The research, carried at Stanford University in the US, comes amid growing concern about the influence of advertising on children's health.

Child obesity rates have trebled over the last 20 years, with 10 per cent of six-year-olds and 17 per cent of 15-year-olds obese in 2008. By 2050, half of all primary school-age boys and a fifth of girls could be so overweight that their health is at serious risk.

Experts have warned that unless the Government acts now, an entire generation faces an old age blighted by heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases brought on by obesity, with today's children dying at a younger age than their parents.