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Stop undermining parents
By Michael Jacobson
USA Today, February 19,
2006 Junk-food
marketers are waging a
full-frontal assault on
American families and
kids' health. Companies
spend about $10 billion
annually convincing kids
to want sugary cereals,
fatty snacks and every
manner of high-cal,
low-nutrient,
factory-spun junk food.
Their marketing is
designed to convince
toddlers and 'tweens alike
that parents are wrong and
that junk-food
spokescharacters such as
SpongeBob SquarePants are
right. Many parents are
sick and tired of having
the nutritional rug pulled
out from under them. They
include two Massachusetts
parents who, with my group
and the Campaign for
Commercial-Free Childhood,
are taking Kellogg and
Viacom (Nickelodeon's
corporate parent) to
court.
This litigation is a last
resort for parents, who
for at least 30 years have
been increasingly
outgunned by marketers and
have waited in vain for
government intervention.
What was once confined to
Saturday mornings is now a
constant onslaught of
24-hour cable programming,
fast-food movie tie-ins
and toy giveaways; video "advergames"
on the Web; and even
classroom marketing
disguised as education.
SpongeBob cartoons are
bracketed with cartoonish
junk-food ads. At the
grocery store, SpongeBob,
Dora, Jimmy Neutron, and
other Nick characters
grace packages of
Pop-Tarts, candy bars, and
sugary cereals — many
containing toys or
plugging Web games.
It's hard enough for savvy
adults to tell where the
entertainment leaves off
and the marketing begins.
The American Psychological
Association has concluded
that kids under age 8
don't even understand the
persuasive intent of
advertising. Any "advertainment"
aimed at this age group is
inherently deceptive — and
potentially harmful when
it's for products that
promote diabetes, obesity,
tooth decay and other
health problems.
If
marketers really believed
that parents easily
controlled their kids'
diets, they'd probably put
Desperate Housewives
or the Sopranos on
junk-food boxes. But the
industry knows its money
is better spent
undermining parents than
courting them. So if
Kellogg really is "proud
of its products and the
contributions they make to
a healthy diet," and if
Nickelodeon truly believes
it encourages "kids and
their families to live
active and healthy
lifestyles," we would like
them to tell that to a
judge — under oath.
Michael Jacobson is
executive director of the
Center for Science in the
Public Interest. |
