The Dudes – a gang of children's heroes who source their powers from fruit and vegetables in a series of video adventures – have helped double consumption in one test school in Brixton, south-west London.

In a control school, where pupils were offered fresh produce, but were not allowed to watch the Food Dude shows, there was no change in consumption. Many national papers reported the story, with the Guardian comparing the phenomenon to the cartoon strongman Popeye, who was responsible for increasing US consumption of spinach by 33 per cent during his cartoon-strip heyday in the 1920s.