Dec 05 2006
Ads to Kids Selling Poor Health
On Monday, an influential pediatricians released some disturbing information for parents:
Inappropriate advertising contributes to many kids’ ills, from obesity to anorexia, to drinking booze and having sex too soon, and Congress should crack down on it, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.
“Young people view more than 40,000 ads per year on television alone and increasingly are being exposed to advertising on the Internet, in magazines, and in schools,” the policy says.
Common sense would tell you that kids who are inundated with constant ads for fast food, male enhancement, and various homicide investigation shows are bound to pick-up some bad habits.
And when did it become OK to for the networks to bombard us with frightening images from their violent shows? CBS is the worst. Try watching a football game on CBS and you will see constant images of violence thanks to incessant promotions for CSI [you city here] shows. At one time, all you had to do was flip channels during commercials to avoid the “rough” images. Now, they put their twisted promos on between downs!
I’m glad that pressure is being applied to clean-up advertising. Of course, the advertising industry has a different view:
“It’s as dangerous for pediatricians to make recommendations about advertising as for me to write a prescription for a child’s ear infection,” said Dick O’Brien of the American Association of Advertising Agencies
This from the people who brought you meeting rooms full of monkeys, geckos who drive, and the smiling Enzyte guy. Clearly, you don’t have to own a brain to be an advertiser.
- Pediatricians blast inappropriate ads
- Pediatricians take aim at advertising to kids …
- Junk Food Ads Spoil Kids’…Minds
- The Kids are Alright
- Kids are exposed to too many erectile dysfunction ads
