Advertising and Media Influence on Children it

Advertising and Media Influence on Children

It shouldn't come as a shock that commercials during children's programming include ads for toys, junk food, snacks and confectionary, after all, most advertisers are fully aware that most of their target market consists of young children, and "young children are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against television advertising" (Strasburger, 2001).

Children, especially pre-schoolers and pre-adolescents are the highest susceptible to the influences of advertising. Toy merchandise is thrown in between programs and during hours that children are most likely to be watching television, but parents have a reasonable amount of sway when it comes to the selection of toys.

There are birthdays, seasonal holidays like Hannukah and Christmas, and most parents can rely on the fact that after a few months, there will be something better, and more exciting that will capture their child's interest and start the onslaught of nagging all over again.

Nevertheless, children-targeted advertising has grown over the years mainly because, "children influence $500 billion in spending per year, and corporations spend more than $12 billion a year marketing to children" (Mothering, 2000) which is a rise by 20% compared to a decade ago.

While toys may be easy to control, the snack food, junk food, confectionary industries are a little harder, and evidence shows that children are paying dearly for it through low health, obesity and poor dietary habits. "Half of all the ads that children view are for food, especially sugared cereals and high-caloric snacks. On Saturday morning television, 61% of commercials are for food, and more than 90% of those are for sugared cereals, candy bars, fast foods, chips, or other nutritionally unsound foods" (Strasburger).

The natural argument here is that parents should exert more responsibility over what their children consume, but in a nation that is seduced by fast food, and sweet foods, it is easy to see where the problem truly lies. In his book Fast Food Nation, Schlosser takes the blame for the country's growing rate of obesity away from the gene pool and back where it belongs; "the American gene pool has not changed radically in the past few decades. What has changed is the nation's way of eating and living" (Schlosser, pg 240).

The influences on children doesn't stop when the television has been switched off, but continues to influence children and their decisions on what is good food through subliminal jingles, and imagery. "Preschool children see thousands of television commercials in a given year. Children younger than 6 years can sing commercial jingles and correctly identify corporate trademarks such as logos and trade characters" (Borezekowski, 2001).

Many children are drawn to particular food, especially fast food, not understanding that what they are being told to eat are foods high in fat and sugar, and with little or no dietary fiber. Advertisers are to blame for the poor eating habits, and their development in young children, while propagating these habits in adolescents and adults.

These advertisements create not only poor dietary habits, but give children the misconception that they must have what they see. They are creating children who are developing strong values for materialism. "Based on a 28-day diary study, researchers found that 3- and 4-year-old children made an average of 24.9 requests, predominantly for candy, toys, and snack foods" (Borzekowski).

Advertisers are relying on children's short-term preferences and attention span to accentuate the desire for particular foods, and products. Some commercials can be repeated continuously throughout different programs in any given day, allowing children the opportunity to 'memorize' what they see, and therefore transplant 'good taste' and 'fun' into particular foods and toys. While a 1990 law states that "commercials are limited in children's programming to 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and not more than 12 minutes per hour on weekdays" tests have shown that in essence, "it takes only 1 or 2 exposures to a 10- to 30-second food commercial to influence 2- through 6-year-olds' short-term preferences for specific food products" (Borzekowski).