The reality of supersized marketing

Fed up? Well, you ought to be. This is not a case of "woulda,
shoulda, coulda." It's gotta, Gotta, GOTTA. At issue is your kid, your
dollars, your food choices and the people who want to control all three.

Marketing to children is associated with a number of serious concerns.
Among them are family stress, youth violence, precocious sexuality and
a sizeable contribution to children's diminished capacity to play. But
the 800-pound gorilla of them all is the now well-documented epidemic
of childhood obesity.

The news on this topic is relentlessly disturbing. In fact, there is so
much being written and broadcast that some parents exhibit MEGO
Syndrome ("My Eyes Glaze Over") when the subject comes up. But the
frightening connection between obesity and marketing should snap any
parent out of apathy and into action: If we do nothing about how fast
our children are gaining weight, we may be the first generation of
parents to produce children with a life span shorter than our own.

Take, for example, the news on Type II diabetes. It used to be called
"adult onset diabetes" -- until someone began counting how many
children between the ages of 9-18 were being diagnosed. It is projected
that one out of every three children born in the years 2000 and on will
become diabetic. According to a 2004 study at Yale, children given that
diagnosis before age 15 can expect to reduce their lifespan by 17 to 27
years.

One of the biggest villains is soda pop. There are 30 million soda
vending machines in the United States -- that breaks down to one for
every 97 people. While some school districts are willing to turn down
the soft drink companies' financial support for programs that are in
fiscal need (see related stories, page 20), others are not. This should
be a no-brainer: Studies show that children who aren't amped up on
sugar drinks behave better and retain more of what they are learning.

Another hazard is portion control. Europeans often comment on the fact
that in terms of serving size of both food and beverages, our "small"
is their "large." Yet the minute a family member turns on the TV, the
terms "whopper," "super" and "MEGA!" come roaring out at those least
prepared to deal with them.

According to the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC):

Children see 40,000 advertisements per year on TV alone. And this
number does not include "product placement," where a viewer can see a
recognized brand being held or consumed by a character in the show.
(Does your family watch "American Idol?" What kind of soda is everybody
drinking? That's product placement -- in prime time.) That means our
kids are seeing hundreds of additional "hidden commercials" per week.
Children
see advertisements on the Internet, at the movies, on school buses, in
classrooms (sometimes on each other's clothing) and in the cafeteria.
Radio, TV and magazines target kids too. Combined with the previous
total, children can see about 3,000 ads per day.
Almost
every major media program has a line of licensed merchandise used to
sell fast foods, breakfast cereals, snacks and candy. Note what's
missing: anything HEALTHY.
Many toys, like Coca-Cola Barbie and McDonald's Play-Doh, are actually ads for junk food.
In
their effort to establish cradle-to-grave brand loyalty, marketers even
target babies as young as 10 months old through licensed toys and show
characters. Think (and shudder) Teletubbies and BooBahs, for starters.

A
significant problem is that very young children can't distinguish
between commercials and the content of the programs. Somewhere in the
home of parents with older children is a den of Care Bears just waiting
to get to a yard sale, along with My Little Ponies, Linus and Lucy, and
the Transformers that crippled any parent unfortunate enough to step on
one when getting up (in inadequate lighting) to check on a restless
child.

They were all "must haves" because of their TV shows...remember?

And it's getting even worse for older kids, who are being encouraged to
buy products especially if they think their parents won't approve. The
"nag factor" is an actual part of many marketing plans. A recent
cartoon in the New Yorker showed two boys following their mom through a
store; one of the boys clutching the item in question says to the
other, "Don't worry. She'll give in as long as we stay on message."

What can parents do right now?

Contact
AME (Action for Media Education) in Seattle and arrange for the
organization's new Speaker's Bureau to do a presentation for your
organization, school or preschool. The newest information on marketing
to children is material you need to know (especially in light of PBS'
new venture, "Sprouts," which permits commercials.) Visit www.action4mediaeducation.org for more information.
Plan on attending the ParentMap-sponsored Pathways Lecture,
"Impacting the Supersized Generation: A Panel Discussion about Health,
Nutrition and Media Influence on Families" with Don Shifrin, M.D. and
Jan Faull, M.Ed. The event is May 12 from 7-9 p.m. at the First
Congregational Church in Bellevue.
Run,
do not walk, to your bookstore for Susan Linn's book Consuming Kids:
The Hostile Takeover of Childhood. It's as smart, funny and informative
as its author, who is co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial Free
Childhood. www.commercialfreechildhood.org
Rent
and pre-screen Morgan Spurlock's award-winning documentary "Super Size
Me." It's rated PG-13 for the occasional expletive and a one-second,
"black-boxed-out" shot of Mr. Spurlock's medical exam prior to his
eating nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days. (He survived, and so
will you.) It is (pardon the pun) FULL of important information.
Download "Food For Thought" from the ACME (Action Coalition for Media Education) -- the Web site is www.acmecoalition.org.
It provides a list of print-based resources, and will soon offer lesson
plans for teachers interested in looking at marketing with the people
at the center of the target: our kids.
Finally,
remind your kids that "fast" food is essentially over-processed food
being tossed to the customer. In perhaps the best line from "Super Size
Me," we are reminded to pass along this advice to our kids: "Never eat
anything served out a window -- unless you're a seagull."