The Hindu Business Line : Watch out...

Every time you are tempted to use TV as your babysitter, remember that the child watches more than just her favourite show... commercials weave their subtle web around her.

Do advertising and consumerism make our children sick? Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture, a recent book by US academic Juliet Schor, makes a powerful case that they do. Part of a series of marketing books by Scribner, it examines how North American children are the latest targets for marketers. The study relates unhappiness in children with the pressure to possess.

Schor, sociology professor at Boston College, shows that 10 to 13-year-old Boston kids (her sample group consisted of 300 children) are extremely materialistic and entirely incorporated into `junk food' and what she refers to as `junk culture' — a mixture of MTV, designer label clothes and too many toys.

High consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints, she writes. Also, "Higher levels of consumer involvement result in worse relationships with parents." The more designer label-conscious and materialistic the children, the more they tended to fight and argue with parents who didn't `seem' to have enough.

The book finds that American kids are exposed to about 40,000 advertising messages each year, while corporations are spending $5 billion on advertising and marketing to children under 12. Junk food advertisements dominate and it is well known that 15 per cent of American and Canadian kids are obese, while one in three can expect to develop diabetes.

In Canada, kids influence Canadian $15 billion of family purchases (about 70 per cent), according to cartoon network YTV's Kid and Tween Report, an annual national survey that tracks children's attitudes and opinions. The report suggests that more democratic family structures, where children have their say, are the explanation. YTV has polled 5,847 kids aged 9-14 since it started its Tween survey in 1995. It continues to follow these kids to find out about their preferences. Compared with the US, however, the Canadian government exercises greater broadcast control — ads are not supposed to make exaggerated claims and are strictly meant to be age appropriate; each commercial for children is `cleared' before it goes on air. In fact, Canada is the world leader in children's advertising, led as it is by a government-industry initiative and differs widely from the relatively `no controls' broadcasting situation in America.

Even so, Canadian kids aged 6-12 are watching an average of 21 hours of television every week, with the permissible eight minutes of commercials for every hour of programming; they are also putting in about five hours on Internet-connected computers. This constantly exposes them to thousands of advertising messages.

"I find it a constant battle to tear my five-year-old away from the TV, and it's loaded with attitude serials, as well as all the toy and junk food ads," says Samantha Morris, a part-time legal assistant in Vancouver. She is conscious of her daughter recognising more and more brands and constantly asking for things at the supermarkets. She says TV is a corrupting influence and, despite its attraction as a `babysitter', Morris is increasingly monitoring her daughter's TV watching.

`No single factor'

There is no evidence that commercialisation is making our kids sick, says Diana Carradine, Executive Director of the Concerned Children's Advertisers (CCA), a Toronto-based social marketing agency which promotes responsible advertising. Its 25 industry members include McDonald's and Kelloggs, who support CCA, which, in turn, produces educational tools and socially relevant TV ads against bullying and for promoting self-esteem.

"The reality is we live in a media-rich world; media literacy is important and you also know how to think critically about how you use the media," says Carradine. She adds that there have been no complaints against advertisers for the past four years "which shows the system is working (in Canada)".

Shifting the blame away from advertising, she says: "It is each family's choice to buy or not buy... Advertising is about respect and choice," she insists. Banning ads is not the solution, she says, illustrating that in Quebec — the only province so far to ban ads for children under 12 — the rate of obesity remains the same among children.

This shows that no single factor is responsible for the junk food culture or materialistic values in our children. "We all have a role to play and need to explore our own roles." She represents the group that opposes the `nanny State syndrome'. (But how is free choice really working? McDonald's catchy `I'm lovin' it' TV ads, and the free toys that come with the greasy, low nutrition meals, have toddlers and pre-schoolers hooked from a very tender age. But pointing out that McDonald's has added healthful choices (grilled sandwiches and fruit slices), Carradine comments that the "industry is... starting to change the way they do business".

Kid-targeted advertising is definitely a problem for ex-marketer and mother of two Debbie Gordon, who set up Mediacs — to make kids media literate and understand they are targets. She helps schoolchildren deconstruct ads, searching for the ideas marketers are implanting alongside selling their products. She makes them see Gap and its message of `happiness' just from buying the clothes, as also the fun and popularity messages built into these ads. "I meet kids all the time for whom the media is such a large part of who they are — at what point it becomes a pathology is difficult to tell," says Gordon, who in the past marketed for Hershey, Kraft and YTV.

Ad Hawks, another of Gordon's programmes, makes children more aware of how they get their designer labels, for instance. "Children from Grade 2 (7-8 years) say they won't buy Gap or Nike since they are products made with child labour," says Gordon, indicating how effective Ad Hawks can be.

Ads for kids are banned in Sweden and not allowed on air between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. in Greece, while everywhere else in Europe the industry is self-regulated. There is now talk of banning ads for kids under 12 in Ontario, Canada's most populated province, says Gordon.

While the `ads for kids' debate continues, it seems like North American kids will live with consumerism and choice for the most part. Finally, the onus lies with parents who have to exercise greater media control whether it is about kids watching TV or using the Internet. Thousands of Canadian families have drastically reduced or stopped TV watching altogether as a solution.

Gordon herself has `no media days' and spends time with her kids to see what they watch and whether it's appropriate. "It is always tempting to use the TV as a babysitter but that's what is dangerous," she cautions, "Parents in this media culture just have to work harder."

Women's Feature Service

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