Advocacy to Limit Advertising to Children

I’ve talked about this in this blog, and on a couple of others blog via comments…but now it isn’t only me or other independent players that are getting on this subject, it seems as now an ‘influential congressman’ is urging the Federal Communications Commission to restrict or limit the advertising of sugary-foods to children.

I personally feel good about this news. Advertising is a very big industry in the U.S as well as in most of the countries around the world. However, due to the large amount of information that is being sent to kids via advertising, I believe we are causing somewhat of confusion in their immature minds. Younger kids don’t yet have the exact ability to distinguish wrong from right, or trustworthy from non-trustworthy. Because of this lack of distinction, they accept most of the messages they’re exposed to (they’re like little sponges, getting as much brain impulses in as they can).

With the sugary, high fat, calorie dense industry constantly advertising to them (through channels dedicated to kids), the children exposed to them will of course see them as something good. Now this doesn’t mean that they will go and buy it for themselves, or even persuade a parent to do so; but what this does mean, in my opinion, is that they’re creating mental and behavioral patters in life that will be hard to brake later on in their maturing life. Kids at this ages are just then creating their lifestyle, their choices, their likes and dislikes, etc., if all they are getting are messages on non-healthy foods for them (which they don’t know, they think they’re just as good as mom’s broccoli soup), the choice of behavior might be pretty obvious and easy to forecast.

I don’t believe in stopping these ads once and for all, but I do think there must be a harsher and much more strict regulation applied to them. Of course in the perfect world this wouldn’t be needed, we would have ethic minded folks taking the decisions in the big companies, making the right ones that would have only positive effects, both sides!

Via MediaPost Daily