Advertising: Child's Play

Advertising: Child’s Play
In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “’Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising and Violence”, Kilbourne argues that advertisements that use a body – especially a woman’s body – lead to sexual aggression. In a similar fashion, advertisers use bright colors, cartoons, and childish humor to attract an audience of children to their products. Three main aspects, a child’s health, a child’s social skills, and a child’s future seem to be affected by advertising targeted towards children and not in a good way.
Childhood obesity is a steadily growing problem here in America. “The prevalence of obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008” (“Childhood Obesity”). As this problem only increases, fingers begin to be pointed at reasons. Those being blamed are the fast food industries. The bright colors, figure heads (like Ronald McDonald), and toys just reel in children, leaving them pouting for a “happy meal”. However, people have been coming up with some ideas on how to solve this problem. “Banning fast food advertisements from children’s television programs would reduce the number of overweight children in the U.S. by 18 percent and decrease the number of overweight teens by 14 percent, economists have estimated in a new study” (Rabin). While this may or may not work, fast food companies, such as McDonald’s and Burger King, now air ads advertising low-fat milk and apple sticks. In response to this action, Elaine Kolish, a spokeswoman for the Council of Better Business Bureaus states, “I can’t help think that two huge chains advertising apples and milk to kids is going to be affecting children’s preferences” (Rabin). Overseas, countries have already acted against their childhood obesity problems, but for us Americans, and end to this epidemic seem far from reach. “Only three countries -- Sweden, Norway and Finland -- have banned commercial sponsorship of children’s programs, and study authors acknowledged... [continues]

Read full essay