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Is Cartoon Character Advertising Making
American Kids Fat?
Roosevelt
Pitt
NaturalNews
October 3, 2008
Believe it or not it's been nearly seventy-three years
since one of the earliest cartoon driven products was
advertised to children. Post Cereals discovered their
sales for Post Toasties skyrocketing after they licensed
a certain adorable rodent. Care to guess who the popular
movie character was? You may be as surprised as I was to
learn it was Mickey Mouse! Soon afterwards, with little
surprise, other companies followed suit and found the
golden goose of advertising to children. In the 1950s,
Continental Baking Co. employed the puppet Howdy Doody
to pitch Twinkies on his popular TV show.
Children are attracted to flashy colored characters and
packaging and although parents may say "no, no, no", at
the end the likes of Spongebob SquarePants, Scooby Doo,
Shrek, Barbie, Cookie Monster and others often win out.
And be aware that all of the characters mentioned have
at one time or another promoted low nutrient value foods
and continue to do so. Animated characters that have
brought joy, excitement and years of entertainment, in
my opinion, are delivering directly or indirectly an
early demise to our children. For example, SpongeBob is
one of the worst and is guilty of promoting many
unhealthy junk foods. It's clear by my study and what
has recently occurred with Michael Phelps (yes, sports
heroes can be just as misused in advertising as animated
characters are) that corporate profits outweigh the
worth of health.
For years many advocacy groups have taken corporations
such as Disney, and most recently Nickelodeon and
Kellogg's, to task for their ongoing advertising
campaigns. The Center for Science in the Public Interest
and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, along with
several parents, claim that using Nickelodeon characters
such as SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer as a way to
entice children is ultimately contributing to child
obesity. I wholeheartedly agree. And if you are a parent
it's an inescapable reality that corporations utilizing
these characters for profit and personal gains usurp
your authority.
The Institute of Medicine, one of the nation's leading
scientific advisory bodies, which spent a year studying
the effects of food marketing on children's diet and
health, stated clearly that the effects of using
licensed characters on food packaging is directly
associated with obesity. As expected, most food
manufacturers had no comment on that report. Others,
such as Kraft foods, took notice and have made some
significant changes.
It's estimated, as I've mentioned in other articles,
that food manufacturers spend nearly 11 billion dollars
per year on marketing campaigns that target children and
many of these are lead by cartoon characters. So, one
question comes to mind. Are advertisers making our
character favorites "cartoons of doom" for our children?
Or can they be compared to the analogy of a gun? The gun
is not evil in and of itself, or harmful, some argue.
It's the person that uses it. Either way we should
protect ourselves with as much knowledge as possible and
understand that we have more power than we believe. Play
with a gun long enough and it's bound to go off. Can
television, magazine and website advertising to children
be considered a mental gun that could go off? If you set
your children in front of the television or allow them
to surf the web for long periods of time unsupervised,
the answer is a resounding "yes".
Regardless, keep in mind that corporations respond to
one thing and one thing only: Money. Stop the flow of
greenbacks and they will take notice and make changes.
So saying no to your child for their own well-being may
deliver a bit of gloom for your little one, but later in
life it will blossom into a lifestyle of making
healthier choices.
I'm not one for shameless plugs, but I will say that I'm
glad Charles the Chef exists to help offset the effects
of negative advertising to our children. He is
relatively new to the game, but has power and growing
support. As his popularity grows, I imagine at times he
will have to trade in his cooking utensils for a pair of
boxing gloves or nunchuks to ward off attacks from rival
animated icons. So you may hear him say "Let's Get
Punching!" instead of "Let's Get Cooking!" Just a
whimsical way of saying that despite the glitter of
animated character-driven advertising, don't be fooled.
We are in a constant battle for the lives of our
children. It's good to know that Charles the Chef is on
the front lines with us. |
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