Facts
About the Effects of Advertising and Marketing on
Children
Children
see more than 40,000 advertisements a year on
TV alone (Kunkel, 2001), spending almost 40 hours a
week outside of school consuming media (Roberts,
et al, 1999), most of it commercially driven. From
1992 to 1999 the amount spent marketing to children
shot from $6.2 billion to $12 billion (Lauro, 1999).
Children are more vulnerable to advertising than
adults: children 8 and under don’t understand
persuasive intent (Kunkel, 2001) and very
young children can’t distinguish between commercials
and program content (Atkin, 1982).
Violence
A major study by the
Federal Trade Commission concluded that marketing
violent entertainment to children is a common
entertainment industry practice (FTC, 2000).
In 2000, six major
medical/mental health organizations issued a Joint
Statement based on over 30 years of research,
concluding that viewing entertainment violence can
lead to increased aggressive attitudes, values, and
behavior in children (American Academy of
Pediatrics, 2000).
Violence is a learned behavior, and aggressive
behavior at age eight is predictive of levels of
aggression in adulthood (Eron & Slaby, 1994).
Obesity
Food
commercials account for most TV advertising during
children’s peak viewing hours (Taras & Gage,
1995).
On Saturday mornings,
children see one food commercial about every five
minutes (Horgan et al, 2001); most of these ads are
for foods high in fat, sugar and calories (Kotz &
Story, 1994).
A preschooler’s risk
for obesity increases by 6% for every hour of TV
watched per day. If there’s a TV in the child’s
bedroom, the odds jump an additional 31% for every
hour watched (Robinson et al, 2001).
Brand choices by children are young as two are
affected by as little as one thirty second commercial
(Borzekowski & Robinson, 2001).
Obese
children appear more influenced by food
advertisements’ personal enhancement message (Lewis
& Hill, 1998).
Eating Disorders
Girls with anorexia are more susceptible to the
pressure of weight loss advertising (Toro et al,
1994).
Dissatisfaction with body
image rises with increased exposure to fashion
magazines, which contain a great amount of ads (Fields
et al, 1999).
Among Fijian adolescent
girls, disordered eating increased significantly
following exposure to TV.
Discussion revealed that interest in weight
loss was a way to model themselves after TV characters
(Becker et al, 2002).
Family Stress
Advertisers
encourage children to nag their parents (Eig, 2001).
Seventy eight percent of
parents think that marketing puts too much pressure on
children to buy things that are too expensive,
unhealthy or unnecessary; and 70 percent believe it
has a negative effect on children’s values and world
view (Center for a New American Dream, 1999).
There is a strong correlation between TV
viewing, requests for products, and family conflict (Liebert
& Sprafkin, 1988; Robertson et al, 1989; Robinson
et al, 2001).
Even in a twenty minute
program, children are influenced by advertisements and
try to influence the consumer behavior of their
parents (Brody et al, 1981).
Materialistic
Values
A Center for a New
American Dream survey found that 63% of parents
surveyed believed that their children define their
self worth in terms of what they own (Center for a New
American Dream, 1999).
People who are highly materialistic (a value
reinforced by consumer marketing) are likely to have a
lower quality of life than those who value more
internal rewards such as self-acceptance and community
(Kasser, 2000; Sirgy, 1998).
College students who
value financial success more than other goals were
found to be more depressed and anxious than their
peers (Kasser & Ryan, 1993).
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