A powerful influence:

Celebrities who endorse specific foods in TV commercials are a powerful influence on children, and that effect may extend beyond the advertisement itself.

A new study from Liverpool University in UK based on observations of 181 children found the kids ate more potato chips after seeing ads featuring a popular sports figure - and after seeing him as the host of a TV show - than kids who watched commercials for toys and nuts.

Previous research has shown that kids are more likely to pick foods endorsed by celebrities, even when it's fruit. For example, a 2012 study found kids who were offered both cookies and apples were more likely to choose the apple if it had an Elmo sticker on it

Researchers say the finding is a worry since most foods advertised on TV are unhealthy, and could affect a child's future weight and health.

Each child watched one of four commercials or TV show clips that were embedded in a 20-minute cartoon.

One of the commercials featured Gary Lineker, a former star football player who has been endorsing the potato chip brand Walker's Crisps since 1995.

Another clip was from Lineker's popular TV sports show without any mention of the chips. The two other commercials were for salted nuts and a toy.

After watching the cartoon and commercials, the children were allowed to eat from two bowls of chips. One bowl was marked as Walker's Crisps. The other was marked as "supermarket brand." The researchers then measured how much the children ate from each bowl.

They report in the Journal of Pediatrics that the children ate about the same amount of the supermarket chips regardless of which commercials or clip they watched - about 15 grams.

But kids who watched Lineker's potato chip commercial or his TV show ate significantly more of the Walker's Crisps branded potato chips.

"Our findings that the celebrity endorser influence extends beyond the celebrity's involvement in commercials and does not affect intake of nonendorsed brands of the same item speak to the strength of the associations that children develop between celebrity and branded products," the researchers write.