Advertising to children

Bianca Borja
Professor Foults
Writing 2
9 May 2014
The Growing Problem in America: Advertising to Children and its Detrimental Effects on Society
[ABSTRACT]
Companies view children as a major market force, and they have been targeted intensely through marketing and advertising efforts. These efforts have created their own genre of food, a once nonexistent category created by media efforts to make profit, called “kids food”. These foods are against dietary recommendations, extremely high in sugar and fat, and appeal to children through their fun shapes and sizes rather than the actual taste or nutrition they contain. “Kids food” establishes the idea that kids need their own type of food, when in reality; they are at a point in their lives when proper nutrition is needed. Dr. Mary Story, professor of health and nutrition, stated that “nutrition during childhood and adolescence is essential for growth…eating behaviors established during childhood track into adulthood and contribute to long-term health” (Story, 2004). Nutrition during childhood is extremely important, and it should be a time to introduce healthy foods instead of sugar filled Fruit Loops or fun shaped Lucky Charms that can lead to disease and health problems as an adult. Their advertisements are misleading to children who, according to the American Psychological Association, are unable to understand the intent of advertising until the age of 8 (Kunkel, 2004). They are told by the industry to want the candy, to want the fun shaped snacks, and to need these foods because it is what kids are supposed to want. The future behavior, diet, and overall health of America lies in the hands of the food advertising world.
In the twentieth century, new media such as film, radio, and newspapers were the first sources through which children were exposed to. By 1940, television was the primary source of media access for children and in 1941, commercial television made its debut, thus beginning the world of food advertising to children. One of the leading brands during early advertising days was Campbell’s Soup, and although mainly targeting mothers, the ads contained pictures of happy children holding up their empty bowl for more soup.

Campbell’s Soup Advertisement

Fig. 1 Campbell’s Soup, 1950

Almost every advertisement had a happy smiling child, ready for the next bowl of soup, and this image is only one example that began the idea of kids food, and what kids should be fed. It was telling mothers that they need to feed their children these easy to make soups (that are extremely high in sodium), because it’s just what kids should eat. The 1950’s advertising world ran by the idea of stay-at-home moms, and these early advertisements were for a new hassle free food product for mothers to cook. The consequences of these ads however, were that they created the idea that kids food should be different from adults.
This problem exists because of the food companies and their greed for money, but it worsens when children are uneducated about food. In more recent years a study by Charlene Elliott, PhD professor of food studies at the University of Calgary, examined children from ages 6-11, asking them what their thoughts were on kids and adult food. When asked what they considered kids food, the children responded with the following: “Candy and chocolate because they are unhealthy and no good”, and “Junk food because kids enjoy it because its sugar and stuff and kids love sugar”. However when asked about adult food, the following was said: “Something healthy, apples or bananas”, as well as “Healthy and stuff like vegetables” (Elliott, 137). This study shows the alarming divide between kids and adult food, a divide that has been created by advertising and marketing efforts. It is a huge problem that children believe they aren’t supposed to be eating healthy, and it is a problem caused by not only by the advertising and food industry, but by consumers themselves.
This issue is something that needs to change if we want to improve the health of our country. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 17% of youth in America are overweight. This number is astonishing compared to the mere 5-10% that were overweight in the early 1960’s (Carroll, 2010). The increased popularity of televisions in American households since their debut means that children are more frequently exposed to advertisements; and the relationship between these statistics is something that must be taken into account. It is our culture and society that has made this such a problem in America, and we have become food obsessed. Children growing up surrounded by food can only worsen the obesity problem that has taken over America’s youth, where one in three children are overweight (Bird, 2013). America’s decline in health has taken a sharp turn within the last years, but simple steps can be taken to slowly fix what we have done. Advertisements teach kids what to want and how to get it. They teach them what foods they should be eating and why. This guides their behaviors and characteristics and can be destructive in the ages of developmental growth. Advertisements towards children are the causes to the growing health issues in America, and they mold children into market machines who beg and whine until they receive their products. This has detrimental effects on this country, and with a look at the causes of this issue we can start to repair America for a better tomorrow.

A Historical Analysis on the Causes of Aggressive Advertising to Children
Children are the future, and our society’s future success lies in their hands. However, instead of helping children and teaching them proper nutrition, America has let the media control their beliefs about food, leaving them with a very wrong definition of it. To better approach the issues caused by advertising to children, one must look at the causes of the problem to find an appropriate solution.
Children have learned the power of complaining, and how effective it can be when parents are tired of hearing their child kick and scream. Companies purposely make their products appealing to children and depend on them to complain and have their parents buy the food. These pressing issues that have arisen from advertising to children have changed the way our society works. With a marketing aim at children, the food industry has begun to take advantage of our youth, not only changing their diet habits but their behavior. In fact, nutrition researcher Dr. Richardson explained in her Oxford-Durham study that the unhealthy dietary fats found in junk food can replace the healthy fats in the brain. This contributes to children’s performance in school, as well as their attention span and behavior. This is just another problem being caused by the industry’s advertising efforts, and to find a solution the cause and root of the problem must first be examined. The food industry’s use of characters or mascots, psychologists, and package labeling claims have created aggressive advertisements to children and are contributing to children’s weight gain, lack of food education, and bad behaviors. The use of character mascots in advertising brings in a substantial amount of money, and the popular characters influence children’s food choices. Children can be very persuasive, and can make their parents buy them these products they desire, so it makes sense that of the 1.6 billion dollars spent by the industry, about 13 percent is spent on character licensing and cross-promotion efforts (Klein, 2). This use of advertising characters can be dated back to the 1800s, with companies using icons such as Aunt Jemimah or the Quaker Oats man. These early characters, according to Meet Mr. Product by award winning author Warren Dotz, were meant to indicate the maker of the product in a simple and traditional way. Dotz mentioned examples such as Aunt Jemimah, whose mascot appeared as a southern African American woman to advertise the idea of warm southern syrup (10, 11). Whereas adults can be drawn to a product by a simple mascot, children have limited attention spans which means companies needed to create interesting and fun characters that would be appealing to its young consumers. The change started in the mid-1900s, and these new mascots were meant to simply be appealing without any association to the actual product. Some examples are the use of a rabbit to be a mascot for Trix yogurt instead of a cow, or the use of various animals to represent cereals even though toucans and tigers have no association to breakfast foods. These advertising characters are powerful in food marketing to children because they mislead their interests and make them believe the foods with fun characters are better.
Besides the simple evolution of these mascots into meaningless representatives, advertising characters changed to appeal to children through fun and looks rather than by endorsing the product. Kellogg’s is one example of a company who uses this strategy to appeal to children, and one of their most famous characters, Tony the Tiger, appeared in the 1950’s to advertise the company’s Sugar Frosted Flakes cereal. In his early years Tony was an average sized cat who walked on all fours, but as the nation become more health conscious and parents became worried about their children’s health, the company slowly changed their advertisement strategy. Tony became taller, stronger, and leaner, and promoted kids to better themselves by playing sports; and who wouldn’t want to play sports with a giant walking Tiger? Although Tony promotes physical activity, sports have nothing to do with a sugar filled cereal, and the children who ate this product weren’t going to suddenly get up and exercise. Tony appeals to children through his fun oriented lifestyle, but only refers to the actual product in a brief comment, describing it as “Grrrrreat”. This is just one example of how advertising characters misguide children’s intention. Instead of wanting the food, they desire the character shown, and they believe that having a character on their food means it will be better.
In addition to their appealing looks, advertising mascots appeal through children in emotional ways as well, and through that they misguide children’s perceptions about what food they should be eating. In a 2010 study by Yale alumni Christina Roberto, children were given three pairs of identical food, with one of each having a package with a popular cartoon character. The children significantly preferred the taste of the food with the character packaging, even though the tastes were identical (Roberto, 4). This shows the true impact these characters have on children; not only do they represent food that’s supposed to be “fun”, but they misguide children into thinking food needs to be fun. These children’s minds are so overtaken by advertising that they really do taste a difference just because of a cartoon on their food package, and if advertising can do that much then it is something worth fighting against. The characters that appear on food packaging are labels that create the idea of kid food, and it is these images that have created the division of kids and adult food. In addition, children associate not only better tastes with advertising characters, but better feelings. Dr. Thomas Robinson, professor of child health at the Stanford University School of Medicine, stated that these characters are meant to access children’s feelings and memories, and by associating products with things that are considered fun, those products become more desirable to children. (Klein). There really isn’t anything fun about eating breakfast, but when kids watch TV and see others playing soccer with a Tiger, they will remember that fun when they see the character on the box at the grocery store. The creation of advertising characters has caused a problem in America, and children are being misguided to products they do not need. The fact that these powerful character mascots are used to advertise nutrient-poor foods means that there should be restrictions against these marketing strategies.
To advertise effectively, companies have begun to hire child psychologists to provide in-depth knowledge about children’s developmental, emotional, and social needs. Kids are an important demographic to marketers because they can be easily influenced, and can easily persuade their parents to buy a product. Advertising Executive Barbara A. Martino stated the following on her company’s tactics: “We’re relying on the kid to pester the mom to buy the product, rather than going straight to the mom” (qtd. How Marketers Target Kids). Martino’s quote summarizes the entire industry’s perspective on this issue, and why they chose to market towards children. Now that children have the pestering power, companies jump at the chance to lure them in. They do this by using psychologists to exploit children’s desires and fears; fears like not fitting in with their peers or failing at sports. The marketers then use that information to make their product appear as a solution, which makes their food that much more appealing to kids. Dr. Dan S. Acuff, president of Youth Market System Consulting, is one example of a psychologist who has abused his power to gain money and fame while putting children at risk of advertising efforts. Acuff has worked with top companies such as Nestle, Disney, Pepsi, Kraft, and Kellogg’s; all top brands in the kid’s food world. His book What Kids Buy and Why, is a psychological analysis of children’s minds and why they chose to buy the things they do. The book tells readers why 3-7 year olds love things that transform, or why 8-12 year olds love to collect things, (Something companies have used frequently to attract children to their products). In addition, he shares the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of age groups as well as the differences in boys and girls. It is this lack of censorship by psychological professionals that companies take advantage of and use to their benefit, and Acuff’s work exposes children to these marketing companies for pure profit. It is no wonder why these companies are so successful, and why kids have become so inclined to beg for products. The use of psychologists allows the industry to get into children’s heads and unconsciously threaten them with their fears, leaving them with no choice but to beg for the products they don’t really need. Their behavior has changed due to advertising efforts that have succeeded in creating a more motivated consumer, and have taught children to complain until they get what they want. The use of psychologists in advertising to children gives companies an unfair and higher advantage, and has caused the industry to become extremely aggressive towards children. Psychologists also influence the way products are sold, which can be seen in any label on a children’s food product.
In addition to attracting children through psychological appeals, companies have resulted in attracting children and their parents through labeling claims. If one were to turn to the children’s channel and watch a couple minutes of commercials, they would hear phrases like “nutritious”, “balanced breakfast”, “healthy”, and “whole grain guaranteed”. However, they wouldn’t be hearing the truth, which is that 57% of products advertised to children qualify as high in sugar, and 95% contained added sugar. (Front Labels on Food: Deceptive). Front labels on food have been deceiving parents for years, and they are not to be trusted. The product might be a good source of vitamins and minerals, but it might also be filled with an extremely high amount of sugar; something the marketing companies wouldn’t dare label on the front packaging. Labeling allows companies to attract consumers the same way a hook attracts people to an essay by providing a quick detail and summary of the product. It is an easy way to throw out some attention getting words that healthy-minded parents are willing to believe. One infamous example of the problem with labeling is the childhood favorite Sunny Delight. Sunny Delight was advertised to be a replacement juice filled with Vitamin C, an important nutrient to keep in anyone’s diet. This “100% guaranteed Vitamin C” labeling attracted many parents; Participating companies make up leaving them thinking it could be a cheap replacement for the more expensive orange juice. However Sunny Delight is hardly juice at all, and in every commercial for the product, a quick voice over says in the last two to three seconds that it “contains only 5% juice”. So the other 95%? According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the kid friendly juice substitute isn’t juice at all; it contains a mere 2% of concentrated juices, and the other 98% is water and high fructose corn syrup. That means that within each serving of this product, appearing as high in Vitamin C, there is the same amount of sugar as an 8 ounce bottle of soda. It is this lack of regulation that allows these companies to take advantage of its consumers and their children, and companies shouldn’t be allowed to market their product as “healthy” by labeling the item’s only benefit. These claims of nutrition and health benefits manipulate parents into thinking they are as nutritious as or even more nutritious than the healthy products they seem to replace. This is obviously a huge issue that is sadly self-created by the consumers who don’t read into what they are feeding their children, and these labeling claims need to be regulated to ensure that people aren’t misinformed about the food they are buying.
Advertising to children has become incredibly aggressive over the past decades, and will only continue to worsen if a solution is not created. Food mascots are created to purposely manipulate and misguide children to junk food by appearing fun and interesting; not by endorsing the actual product. Psychologists have allowed these types of activities to continue by giving companies in depth details about the way a child’s mind works, and allowing them to play off of children’s fears to make their product desirable. In addition, companies have found their way around regulations by claiming positive aspects of their product on their front of package labeling, which can be misguiding to parents who want to provide their children with the nutrients they need to grow healthy. By restricting and regulating these factors that have caused aggressive advertising, we can fix the issue that has affected thousands of children in this country to ensure the health of the next generation.

An Advertising Fix: The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative
Advertising to children has caused endless problems for children, and there needs to be a solution that will help this misleading advertising issue at its deepest roots and improve the advertising world. Aggressive advertising towards children can improve by the implementation of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative which would force marketers to make their advertised products healthier, less misleading, and stricter towards the companies that are taking advantage of America’s children.
The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative is the proper solution to this issue because it is beneficial to both sides, involves top companies, and has proper nutritional standards to improve the advertising situation. The CFBAI, was created by the Council of Better Business Bureaus in 2006 in order to provide companies that advertise products to children with a reliable self-regulating mechanism. The CFBAI helps promote healthier dietary choices and lifestyles for children in America by having pledged companies devote fifty percent of their advertising to promote healthy dietary choices and nutrition filled lifestyles (CFBAI Promotes Nutritious Choices and Healthier Lifestyles to Kids). The initiative involves 15 of the largest food companies in the food industry who account for about three quarters of the ads marketed towards children on TV. (The companies include Burger King Corp, Cadbury Adams, Campbell Soup Company, The Coca-Cola Company, ConAgra Foods, The Dannon Company, General Mills, The Hershey Company, Kellogg Company, Kraft Foods, Mars Inc., McDonald's USA, Nestle, PepsiCo, and Unilever.) The companies participating have agreed to self-regulated nutritional criteria in which they only advertise foods that meet the requirements for programs with audiences of children 12 and younger, which would need to be implemented by 2015. Since it has been accepted that children cannot understand advertising intent until the age of 8, (through studies by the American Psychological Association), having stricter regulations on this age group would be very beneficial (Kunkel 2004). These regulations include limits on calories and unhealthy nutrients such as saturated fats, Trans fats, and sodium. They also include an encouragement of healthier nutrients such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk (Sharma, 2010). The issue with advertising towards children is that most of the food is claimed to be nutritional, but contains high amounts of sugar as well. This initiative would eliminate any possibility of misleading people, because in order to be advertised, the product wouldn’t be able to have large amounts of sugar or saturated fat. Another important part of the initiative is that the companies that are participating agreed to reduce the use of licensed characters in advertising junk foods. This is a huge breakthrough because the use of well-known characters as mascots for junk food are what make products so appealing to children, and without the fun and intrigue of seeing their favorite cartoon character on food packages, children will be forced to see the product as it is; food. This will eliminate the tantrum-throwing factor because children are more inclined to want things when they see a cartoon character, so without them they most likely would not whine and cry in grocery store isles like they do now. The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative will work because it encourages better nutrition and healthier lifestyles without hurting profits of the company.
Regulation initiatives like CFBAI are not put into action because the corporate world can cut down any threat to their profits, however this initiative would be likely to bring profits to the companies involved. According to an American Dietetic Association study, Americans are eating more vegetables, fish, chicken, and whole grain food, and less unhealthy food that contains Trans fats. (ADA: Consumers Eating More Healthy Foods). This ADA study concluded that diets have changed throughout the years and are becoming more health-conscious. Like any revolution, many things have caused this sudden awareness of food issues and concern for health. This food revolution, known as the Food Movement, has created a support of farmers markets, self-sustaining vegetable gardens, and healthy school lunches. In other words, it has caused people to care about the food they eat, and where it comes from. Many books and documentaries have influenced people and brought awareness to these issues such as Fast Food Nation, Eating Animals, and Food Inc., and they have created new ways of thinking that have proven to help the health of Americans as well as bring profit to companies. One example of this healthy change is the Organic Food Movement; a movement started in the 1990’s in which consumers had become tired of the health hazards that come with the chemicals used in food, concluding in a demand for more freshly grown and healthy products. Soon after this trend in organic food, companies quickly jumped to create their own version of organic food, which brought in a huge profit. According to Iowa State University professor of agriculture Marsha Laux, organic sales are currently over 31 billion, increasing 10% over the course of one year (Laux, 2013). These companies are learning that healthy food is currently a high demand, and if they took part in the organic food movement then it would make sense financially to take part in creating healthier food for children as well, because it too has become a growing demand. Health conscious parents would see that these foods are becoming healthier, and would buy more for their children, leading to profits for the companies. Although taking part in the initiative would benefit food companies, it was made intentionally to protect consumers who are unaware of the unhealthy ingredients in food. If all companies participated, consumers would get a lower amount of sugar, sodium, and Tran’s fat, with a high amount of healthy nutrients. Children are in the most important developmental stage, and by getting proper nutrients from food, they would benefit by not having a high sugar diet and low energy level. The initiative would also help families by not having such misleading advertisements to children that lead to whining and begging that make a parent buy a product they don’t necessarily want to buy. In addition, it would stop the use of children as marketing machines taught to want every product that is advertised to them. This initiative will be successful because it not only helps solve the problem, but it is beneficial to both sides of it as well.
The success of similar regulatory initiatives in other places shows that initiatives like CFBAI do work and will be successful. While the Federal Trade Commission claims that it’s logically impossible to limit junk food marketing to children, many other countries have been successful in doing so (SpongeBob, Junk Food, and the Federal Trade Commission). According to Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, multiple countries such as Sweden, Norway, Austria, and Quebec have voluntarily banned TV advertising directed at children. These bans have proven to be successful, and if they worked in various diverse societies with different values and customs, couldn’t they work in America as well? A study performed by Dr. Kathy Baylis, professor of agricultural economics, sought to find the effects of the ban in the Canadian province of Quebec. Baylis found that the ban reduced fast food spending by 13% each week, leading to 10-20 fewer fast food meals eaten a year, and roughly 2-4 billion fewer calories consumed by children (Baylis, 1). The ban was a huge success in our neighboring country, and its implementation in America would most likely have a similar outcome because of the growing demand for healthier food. The worst that could happen is that it would not work, and if that were to be the case then another policy could take its place. However taking no action towards a solution will bring no change and if it has benefitted those people greatly, then it would do the same for ours.
Another well-known company has decided to take a step towards the healthy food market in a successful self-regulating initiative, and has proved that self-regulation is effective and appealing to health conscious consumers. The Walt Disney Company, in charge of their own theme parks, TV stations, movies, and various products, unquestionably influences children’s lifestyles and diets. Disney announced in 2012 that the company would change their food policy by restricting ads on their television station, reducing sodium in their theme park food, and promoting licensed food products that meet nutritional standards starting in 2015. Disney’s change to healthier food promotion has benefitted them greatly, and they even created a “Mickey’s Seal of Approval” that is placed upon healthy foods in their parks and licensed food in grocery stores. Since then, they have increased their sales by more than 3 billion in servings of fruits and vegetables sold in Disney’s American theme parks since 2006 (Disney Press Release, 2013). Disney has clearly had an impact on children in America, and other companies are sure to follow their lead in their ad-free initiative. In fact according to New York Times journalist Brooks Barnes, this has happened before. In 2006, Disney stopped using its characters to promote products high in sugar, salt, and fat, and soon after both Nickelodeon and Discovery Kids, (both popular children’s channels), announced similar regulations (Barnes 2). Disney is a powerhouse in the kids world, and they pave the way for other smaller companies, so if their methods are successful then others will follow as well. Disney has shown that initiatives promoting healthy eating can benefit many consumers, as well as the corporations themselves. Successful companies give people what they demand, and people are demanding healthy food. The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative is very successful in addressing the current issues with advertising to children, but it is also flawed. As previously mentioned, this initiative is self-regulated and voluntary, which means the companies participating are acting for themselves, and being monitored by themselves. This means that they can stretch the limit as much as possible to gain their high profit while still following the nutrition guidelines. Celeste A. Clark, the senior vice president of global nutrition at Kellogg, provides a perfect example of a top junk food company’s view on regulation. Clark was asked about what qualified as healthy for children, (regarding to children’s cereals), and replied: “We believe that with balance and moderation all foods can have a place in the diet” (Qtd. Keeping Cereal a Cartoon Staple). Clark’s statement shows that her company, a participator in the CFBAI, shows no interest in eliminating their foods from the diets of American children. Since the initiative is self-regulated, each company can decide what foods they consider suitable to advertise, and what nutritional standards they want to follow. Clark’s company for example, chose standards that allow them to advertise foods high in sugar, like their extremely profitable brands of children’s cereals. Just because the junk food falls as acceptable under one part of the nutritional standard, doesn’t mean it’s a healthy item to consume, and the initiative should not have these loopholes. For this initiative to be successful it must not allow the companies to self-regulate, and if that is not possible, then the nutritional standards should be set high enough that companies couldn’t work their way around them. Another problem with the initiative is that it is voluntary, and no one will hold them accountable for following nutritional guidelines. According to Brooks Barnes, NYU graduate and writer for the New York Times, this voluntary and optional part of the initiative allows companies to participate for their own benefit. Barnes argues that the pledged companies could even be participating to avoid government studies on obesity. If this is true and companies are taking advantage of the CFBAI, then things need to change so that is not possible and will not continue. They shouldn’t simply be able to participate and make their own rules; the standards need to be more clear and direct with a clear line as to what is healthy and what is not. The ideas these companies have about health are much like Celeste Clark’s statement in the sense that no food is unallowable to advertise to children, and if they can find a way around rules they will. We must not let there be a way around these standards, and the CFBAI should be amended in favor of the consumer.
Advertising to children has caused an epidemic of unhealthy eating in our country, and children have become more aggressive and less attentive due to advertising strategies. This issue cannot be solved overnight, and the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative is a step in the right direction. If enforced, it would mark an important shift in advertising to children. It would allow for more healthy foods to be sold to kids, with a lessened amount of junk foods in their diets. Similar implementations like Quebec and the Walt Disney Company show that these initiatives do work, and people are demanding and consuming more healthy food. The implementation of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative will change the advertising world into a more health conscious system.
Is Self-Regulation Really the Answer?
The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative would be a successful start to fixing the issue that advertisers have created. It would provide companies with a model to guide them, and standards to follow that would benefit consumers without hurting the profits of the companies. But as with any solution to a pressing issue, there will be disagreements and concerns with its legitimacy. Daniel L. Jaffe, head of the Association of National Advertisers, argues that self-regulation will not improve our situation. He believes that self-regulation will not be successful, but I believe that not only will it be successful, but it will improve our food system for the better. Daniel L. Jaffe is a credible opposer to self-regulation. He received his law degree from Berkeley, and recently spent 11 years on the House and Senate staffs. He has become a forerunner in expanding the First Amendment protection of advertising, and is an advocate of advertiser’s rights on numerous public congregations (ANA Corporate Bios). On October 12 of 2011, Jaffe participated in a hearing regarding voluntary government regulation and restrictions and whether or not they could improve children’s health. His testimony was heard by the Subcommittee of Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, as well as the Subcommittee on Health House Energy and Commerce Committee. Being that these subcommittees would all have interest in a profitable food system, Jaffe’s efforts were made to convince them that self-regulation is not the way to go, and it would not end successfully. Jaffe’s testimony refuted the Interagency Working Group’s proposal on voluntary restrictions that encouraged stronger self-regulation by the food industry. In one of his first arguments, Jaffe rhetorically asked if anyone truly believed that removing advertising characters would reduce childhood obesity. Continuing with his stance against removal or regulation, he stated that regulations like this would lead to the end of Little League sponsorship by branded food or beverage companies, as well as cause challenges for Girl Scouts selling their famous cookies (Testimony of Daniel L. Jaffe, 11). In this slippery slope fallacy, Jaffe simply tried to manipulate the committee members rather than argue the merits of self-regulation. Furthermore, his premise that implied reducing advertising characters won’t affect diet is incorrect to begin with. According to a study by London School of Economics professor of Social Psychology Sonia Livingston, food advertising affects food choices and influences dietary habits (Livingston 2005). Voluntarily removing these characters would make a change in obesity rates because one of the reasons children are so attracted to these products is because they are visually stimulating, and these characters lure them in. A study by Yale alumni Christina Roberto found that children preferred the taste of food with characters on the packaging by giving each child pairs of identical products, (one with a character on it). Roberto found that the children significantly preferred the food with the character, saying it even tasted better when in fact they were identical (Roberto, 4). There is no doubt that children choose food products with characters over those without, and if those characters were reduced then children wouldn’t be so easily fixated onto these products. In regards to Jaffe’s statement, corporate icons have a huge influence over what children chose to eat, and reducing characters wouldn’t lead to the end of Little League teams or Girl Scouts.
Jaffe not only uses fallacies, but misleads his audience with statements that distort the facts. Jaffe argues that there have always been substantial amounts of food commercials for children since the beginning of television and long before rising obesity rates. (Testimony of Daniel L. Jaffe, 27). This argument is wrong in two ways: first, early commercials were aimed at mothers not children, and second, food has become unhealthier over the years with the growing number of processed foods. Jaffe is correct that there have been substantial amounts of commercials and advertisements since the beginning of television, however he fails to recognize the history of advertising and who the commercials were for. The 1940’s, when the television first made its debut, was run by the idea that mothers stay home to clean, cook, and raise children. Nearly every photo of a 1940’s kitchen had a women cooking in it or smiling and serving food to her family and husband, which can be seen in figure one.

Fig. 1. Mother helping children in kitchen. (Mid Century Home Style, 2008).
Figure one is a Youngstown steel cabinet advertisement that shows a woman in her 1940’s natural environment: the kitchen. It’s an important part of Jaffe’s argument to acknowledge who was in control of the family’s diet in the early advertising days, along with how that has changed. If he is arguing that advertising hasn’t started to affect diets because nothing has changed since advertising’s early years, he is incorrect. In the second part of this argument, Jaffe argues that commercials have always been around, and obesity hasn’t; concluding that advertisements don’t affect weight gain among children. Since it’s been established that mothers cooked and controlled the kitchen in the beginning of television advertising days, one can logically conclude that women were the target audience for advertisements as well. Figure two shows a generic advertisement from the 1940’s which consists of the usual woman making dinner for her family. The dinner consists of a healthy soufflé with the Kraft butter as the proper ingredient.

Fig. 2. Kraft Advertisement (Vintage Ad Browser).

Jaffe says that since the beginning of television a substantial amount of ads have been around; however he fails to realize that those ads weren’t for the simple minded children but their mothers. In comparing the image in figure two to a modern Kraft advertisement, one can see the extreme changes that the advertising world has gone through (see figure three).

Fig. 3. Child Eating Kraft Mac n Cheese (Totally Target, 2011).

In comparison to figure two, figure three is now being aimed at young children. This advertisement uses words such as “explosion” and “shapes” to attract children and make them think the product is fun and enjoyable. In addition, whereas the 1940’s ad was suggesting mothers should use their product to make their soufflé better, Kraft is now telling children to eat their product because it is better. But it’s safe to say that a homemade soufflé is healthy compared to a box of Kraft Mac n Cheese. Besides being high in calcium and sodium, Kraft’s Mac n Cheese contain artificial dyes (yellow five and six), which have been linked to allergies, migraines, and hyperactivity (Tepper, 2013). These dyes are found in various products in today’s American diet, and children are consuming them every day. Jaffe argues that advertisements have always been around, so they couldn’t possibly be the cause of the recent obesity crisis. However what he doesn’t realize is that over time food has gotten worse and advertisements have tricked children into thinking they need these unhealthy products. Jaffe uses comparisons of self-regulation to expose its failure, but by doing so he exposes his own. His comparisons have an extremely emotional appeal used simply to mislead his audience instead of opposing the issue at hand. He opposes the idea that advertisements even affect children, which can be disproved by many sources such as Roberto’s study on character packaging. In addition, Jaffe argues that advertisements have no correlation to obesity since they have been around much longer, but his point is misleading. Just because advertisements have been around longer than the obesity crisis does not mean that it is not responsible for it. Advertisements are highly influential to children and are purposely made to be misleading to attract young consumers. If advertisements had nothing to do with obesity then a call for regulation would not have been discussed in the first place. Using self-regulation standards will improve our food system and increase the healthy food that children eat, as well as force companies to improve their food and use more nutritional ingredients within every product. Although it is not a huge improvement, even a small change to our broken food system will help, and a small increase of nutritional food for America’s children could have limitless possibilities.

Conclusion Problems in America are often hard to fix because of the different groups of people who are affected by the issue. Advertisements affect the profits of companies, livelihood of workers, health of consumers, and economy of America. Any slight change to our food system could have various consequences, but self-regulation will not likely become the cause of further issues. Advertising to children affects their health and behavior, and the growing rates of obesity show that whatever we are doing is not right. Companies that choses to self-regulate will become more appealing to health conscious parents and will likely increase their profits as so many others have before. The only negative aspect of self-regulation is that people might chose not to participate, and if that is the case then we are simply in the same spot we started at. However simply taking no action will do nothing to solve this problem that has affected so many people in this country. If human’s had no desire to create better transportation for themselves, where would we be today? The technology generation of today would not exist if it weren’t for the efforts made by the previous generation to create an easier lifestyle. The choices that we make in our lifetime affect our children for generations to come, and by trying to fix our food system we are fighting towards a better tomorrow for generations to come.