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March 11, 2008
Contact: Josh Golin
(617.278.4172;
jgolin@jbcc.harvard.edu)
For Immediate Release
Advocates for Children
Decry Abercrombie & Fitch
Naming Rights at
Children’s Hospital
Public Health Institutions
Should Not Promote Companies That Sexualize Children
Citing the harmful effects of
sexualized marketing and clothing on children, dozens of
pediatricians, psychologists, and other advocates for children
are urging Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus not to
name its new Emergency Department and Trauma Center after
Abercrombie & Fitch. The hospital has granted naming rights to
Abercrombie in exchange for a $10 million donation. A letter
written and organized by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free
Childhood (CCFC) and sent today to hospital officials urges the
hospital to rescind the naming rights because of Abercrombie’s
long history of using highly sexualized images to market its
brand to teens and preteens and selling clothing that
objectifies and demeans young people.
“When it comes to marketing
to children, A&F is among the worst corporate predators,” said
CCFC’s director Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist at Judge Baker
Children's Center and author of Consuming Kids. “They
have built their brand by sexualizing and objectifying children
both through their advertising and their clothing. A company
with such cynical disregard for children’s wellbeing shouldn’t
be able to claim the mantle of healing.”
Abercrombie & Fitch is
one of the most popular brands with preteens, yet the company
routinely includes nudity and explicit sexual situations in its
advertising and its clothing often objectifies or demeans young
people. In 2002, the company sold thongs for 10-year-olds with
"eye candy" and "wink wink" printed on the front. In 2003,
Abercrombie was the target of boycotts and protests when its
catalog featured young people engaging in group sex. The
company was also the target of protests for selling shirts that
demeaned Chinese-Americans through the use of racist
caricatures. One
current Abercrombie website
promoting its Gilly Hicks line
features graphic nudity, boasting “(o)ur site shows a lot of
skin.”
The role of advertising –
like Abercrombie’s – that features impossibly thin and idealized
body types in fostering eating disorders is well-documented.
Research links sexualization with some of the most pressing and
common mental health problems of girls including eating
disorders, low self-esteem, and depression.
"There's a disconnect here.
A&F advertising and products would seem to contribute to the
sexualization of children and objectification of teens and yet
they want us to believe they are interested in their health."
said Dr. Sharon Lamb, a member of the American Psychological
Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls . "If
Abercrombie wants to earn respect, their philanthropy should be
accompanied by an end to their exploitative marketing."
CCFC’s letter was signed by
more than eighty individuals including Carden Johnston, MD, Past
President of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Victor
Strasburger, MD, Professor of Pediatrics at University of New
Mexico School of Medicine; Dr. Lamb, Tomi-Ann Roberts, Deborah
Tolman, and Eileen Zurbriggen, of the APA Task Force on the
Sexualization of Children; and Diane Levin and Jean Kilborne,
authors of So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood.
The letter was also endorsed by fifteen organizations,
including the National Institute on Media and the Family, Dads
and Daughters, and the Eating Disorders & Education Network
“It's time for pediatricians
to stand tall against the barrage of advertising to children by
rejecting corporate funding for the naming of children's
hospitals,” said Dr. Victor Strasburger. “Philanthropy by big
business is laudable – and children's hospitals are among the
most deserving of recipients – but it shouldn't have to come
with a price tag of getting your business' name on a hospital
building. And children's hospitals should think long and hard
about the impact of naming buildings after businesses which
aren't always scrupulously ethical in their own advertising
practices to young people.”
The complete text of
CCFC’s letter can be found at
http://commercialfreechildhood.org/actions/childrenshospitalletter.pdf.
The Campaign for a
Commercial-Free Childhood is a national coalition of health care
professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents
who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through
action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration among
organizations and individuals who care about children. CCFC
supports the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of
parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant
commercialism. For more information, please visit:
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org.
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