The Spices of Marketing Food to Kids and the Truth Behind Tele-Tubbies

Glenn D Grywusiewicz Grywusiewicz 1

English Comp 1

Instructor: Dragoo

October 13, 2011

Assault and Pester:

The Spices of Marketing Food to Kids and the Truth Behind Tele-Tubbies

Because, kids think it's never too early to tell you what they want, then maybe, it's never too late to teach them what they need. If you cook a healthy and balanced dinner and your children decide it is not to their liking, would you be remiss in telling them that you are not running a short order house? If they do not like what you have prepared they can skip dinner and go to bed. Don't worry: kids will not starve and hunger is a powerful motivator, so whether it's a four year old's tears or a teen's last scream of defiance, "None of my friends have to follow these stupid rules!" What's the worst that could happen? It's a small price to pay if you consider the alternative of not teaching healthy eating habits.

According to Matthew Davis MD, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, childhood obesity has been number one on the list of top ten childhood health issues the past four years in a row (Hendrick). Childhood obesity is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child's health or well being. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that 6 percent of Americans between the ages of 6 and 19 were overweight in the mid-to-late 1970s (Sullum 12-13). Now, compare that to the approximately, 17 percent of children and teens who are obese today (CDC).

One has to ask the question. Why? Many people believe that the main reason for this increase is saturation advertising in today's media, which is, often geared toward kids. In 2010-2011, advertisers spent over 30 billion dollars a year on children's advertising. That shows a 60 percent increase since the

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year 2000 (Simontacchi 11). This is money used in the hawking of products from soda, candy, sugary

breakfast cereals, and snack cakes, to iPads, iPods, video systems, and games. The list of products designed to promote tooth decay and a sedentary life style is endless. This kaleidoscope of ceaseless junk clicking past our kids eyeballs gives us the illusion that the villainy and ethics of advertising executives could stoop no lower than the rock bottom it seems to have already found. But, they can; they actually employ psychologists and other childhood behavioral experts to figure out ways to better manipulate our teens, tweens, and crumb crunchers into better manipulating us. How many times have you tried to make it through a shopping trip and not be verbally assaulted or pestered by one of your kids to throw something, they just have to have, into the old shopping cart? Fat chance, you are dealing with trained assassins.

Let us take just a moment to explore three things. Ethics: a set of moral principles, moral: pertaining to right conduct, and immoral: pertaining to wrong conduct. Is it wrong to train our kids to manipulate us? Most people would say yes, very few would say no, and still others might say, "I don't care: I'm just doing my job." For me, when I think of doing the right thing, it's a no-brainer. I do not want anyone or anything in charge of teaching values to my kids except me. Consequentially, the American Psychological Association has set up a task force to study the ethics of advertising to kids (11). Does it sound like I'm trying to vilify the ad industry? Perhaps a little, but let's look at it from a slightly different angle. The FCC has established a very different task force to look closely at the ways food producers use advertising to sell their products to kids. Supporters think its a great idea that this topic is now being discussed at the federal level. Maybe now the food industry will make some changes to avoid regulations. Critics say, that changes in ad campaigns will do little to alter things since the real problem lies in lifestyle changes and exercise. Some companies did make changes.

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Kellogg said they would quit advertising products with more then 200 calories per serving to kids, and General Mills did one better by lowering that number to 175, and decreasing their advertising budget by 9 million dollars. I find these actions quite responsible, however, other companies like Campbell decided to use Disney characters and Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer to broaden their appeal to kids (York). Lets face it: children, young enough to exclaim, "Mommy, I want Dora soup!" have no idea what they are asking their parents to buy and it seems quite clear to me that they are succeeding in their campaign to turn our offspring into badgers.

EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, thinks that the obese kids of today are the heart patients of tomorrow. One quarter of European youth are obese with a staggering 400,000 kids added to that list every year. This is not a problem confined only to the United States, so it makes one wonder if other first world countries share this same corporate ambivalence (Marketing).

One concerned parent/researcher actually took it upon herself to find out what an afternoon of kids TV was really like, so one day in December she sat down and watched a three and a half hour block of Nickelodeon. Whereupon, she viewed only eleven food commercials out of a total of 107 ads all together, the rest were selling toys, video games and, other kid oriented products (Bulik 1-30). Interesting. What I also found interesting was that the article was in an advertising periodical and that it was very close to Christmas. So perhaps it was skewed by the number of toy commercials. This, of course, is just my speculation and I do not want to actually question the author's credibility. Nevertheless, I am convinced that, holiday season aside, eleven commercials