I think everyone who has children (and even those who don't) should watch this series of videos recently posted on the Socialogical Images blog.
In an age of rapidly rising numbers of children struggling with obesity, depression, bi-polar disorder, ADD and ADHD, it's easy to see who the culprit is. I especially found it interesting how they described the difference in advertising to boys and girls; girls will be targeted with products that emphasize materialism and beauty while boys will be targeted with products that emphasize violence and dominance.
Watching those videos definitely made me take a good long look at my own childhood.
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Unfortunately, it is as if boys are not allowed to be boys and girls are not allowed to be girls. Marketers increasingly target both, so that they're caught in between two extremes---not quite children, but not quite adults.
From a more general angle, rather than a feminist one, but, I recommend 'The Real Toy Story' by Eric Clark. It's here : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Toy-Story-Eric-Clark/dp/0552774065
The videos in the link I posted are from a more general angle. There's only a small section of the whole thing that talks about how boys and girls are marketed to differently. Still, I think it's something everyone should see and I'll definitely check out that book as well.
"In an age of rapidly rising numbers of children struggling with obesity, depression, bi-polar disorder, ADD and ADHD, it's easy to see who the culprit is."
Man oh man do I have to take issue with that statement. All of those things are, at least in part, biological conditions. To say people are becoming bipolar because of advertisements strikes me as unscientific at the very least.
It's not easy at all to see who "the culprit" is, probably because there are many culprits and many factors. Witch-hunt tactics don't solve complex problems like childhood obesity rates or the rise in ADD/ADHD cases.
Also, these numbers rise as we get better at recognizing these problems. In an era where, more than ever, men are able to seek treatment for depression (it's still nowhere near perfect, don't get me wrong, but it's improving) of course the numbers will go up.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. The better we are at recognizing problems the better we are able to treat them.
Advertising to kids is a huge issue, but there are a lot of issues out there.
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 10 years old. I've read article after article about how television, especially ads, geared toward children can damage the development of a growing child's mind to where they become too accustomed to fast-paced images such as those on the TV, thereby making it harder to concentrate as they grow older.
Societies like ours where someone's worth is measured by the amount of material things they own, but where most of the population is far from rich, have higher levels of anxiety and depression than those that don't. There is very little scientific evidence that shows a "biological condition" is the cause of these disorders, although I see how it's easy to think that way since we're constantly barraged by pharmaceutical ads telling us we've got "chemical imbalances" in our brains causing us to be unhappy with life.
My mother is a psychologist who primarily works with teenagers. We talk about these sorts of things all the time.
There are proposed different reasons for such disorders, but there is enough evidence to suggest biology and genetics do play a part for a lot of people.
(I don't have a psychologist for a mother, but I do study Psychology and therefore also regularly discuss such matters. Not that this makes me an expert by any means, but I've probably been provided with just as much information and just as many statistics and ideas as you have :).)
I found that film excellent -- up until they threw fat people under the bus with their 'childhood obesity' segment. It was so full of myths and misrepresentations that I simply don't understand what the filmmakers were thinking. The moral panic over obesity is an excellent example of pathologization for commercial ends, but the video actually presents fat kids' bodies as being a 'problem' caused by commercialism and in need of 'fixing'. So very, very wrong.
I think the start of the programme (mainly the second part) takes the badness of marketing directed at kids too far in that it almost sounds as if characters created in kid's shows and films - and the toys from these - are bad, and that all use of advertising has become a bad thing.
Thankfully Michael Rich does point out "Growing up is a very strenuous, difficult, and sometimes hard and scary process for children. One of the things that gives them some stability and continuity in that is their attachment to touchstones in their lives, and among those touchstones are characters. Clifford the big red dog, Mickey Mouse – these are constants in their lives; these are things that they have figured out; they feel they understand, and that they feel comfortable with, and indeed, in their own way, love" after the slating of characters and the products which come from them.
I know I, for one, got through my childhood partly by getting lost in the worlds I created with my toys. I think there's contradiction here in these people first talking about characters and toys as if they're terrible, then later on in the programme saying there's no creative play these days. What do they think children do with the toys? I believe some kid's shows are good to help teach values, and that toys of characters can be healthy to encourage imaginative play. However, I also agree there's too many products coming from each show (and probably too many shows, but with the ridiculous amount of channels there is these days...) - but my sympathy about this goes to the parents, not children, who feel they have to buy expensive (and many) products to keep their child/ren happy.
About taking it too far - someone even says in these clips "The 'Gilmore Girls' eat Poptarts"...so? So do I. I understand the large scale that advertising unhealthy food (especially by targeting kids) is being done on, but I think there has to be a line where it crosses from more normal, harmless advertising (and being realistic) to over-the-top, harmful marketing towards children. By "realistic", I mean: what are they meant to be eating? It's not as if they have a Poptart and discuss it every episode (*shrug* I don't watch the show; maybe they do). This programme also mentions the use of TV characters on healthier food packets such as for cereal. So what are these 'Gilmore Girls' meant to be eating? Something we've never heard of? (The clip this show played to demonstrate their point of supposed badness at these women eating Poptarts didn't even mention a brand, so even if the Gilmore Girls had spoken about cereal it'd apparently be bad.)
However, what was talked about in the fourth clip and onwards is where my extreme annoyance at marketing comes in. Advertising designer brands, more expensive clothes and products, as being better – and making out as if buying something for less makes someone 'uncool' or 'ugly' – and promoting make-up for children as young as six (and younger!) in order to make them supposedly 'beautiful'...this is wrong. This is where it gets harmful. As well as any sexism and racism involved in some advertisements, of course. And using loved characters to constantly advertise unhealthy food (not, say, the 'Gilmore Girls' eating Poptarts in one episode, but commercials showing something like a 'cute' or 'cool' animation eating and loving a greasy hamburger and fries with its human - kid - pals).
I'm also strongly against what's talked about in part five – the alcohol, sex, drugs, and violence shown in the media and in films labelled at an age apparently O.K. to show to younger children. (Violence to a point – one of the examples shown in this programme is 'Transformers', which I don't find to be particularly bad. The 'Transformers' are robots. I think there's a difference between this and a show in which actual humans are the main fighting characters. Saying that, watching 'Power Rangers' when I was younger didn't exactly make me want to hurt others.)
Answering the original poster's "In an age of rapidly rising numbers of children struggling with obesity, depression, bi-polar disorder, ADD and ADHD, it's easy to see who the culprit is" -
obesity, yes, may largely be due to children being more interested in playing video games and watching shows than in exercising (but I believe parents/guardians, as well as schools, should play an important role here to make it so that kids do get exercise), but ADD, ADHD, Manic Depression? I'm not as convinced. You could present the cause and effect argument to the woman who said she designed a study showing that children who watch more television, etc, score higher on a depression and anxiety scale. This argument being: are they depressed because they're playing more video games and watching more television, or are they playing more video games and watching more television because they're already depressed? (I myself was quite depressed as a child, and I found getting lost in my two favourite shows and playing my favourite game to be a great help and distraction. I still do now on occasion.) The answer there is that it's probably both; depends on the child and their life. I'm highly doubting that watching 'SpongeBob SquarePants', or wondering which 'Dora the Explorer' lunchbox to buy, is going to mess with neurotransmitters in a kid's brain to give them Manic Depression (Bipolar).
Unfortunately, the words of one woman in marketing (in the video) sums it up: "Our goal is to move products..."
And the same with what Dr. David Walsh said "If I'm a producer and distributor, I don't think it's fair for me to say 'Well I don't care what the social consequences of what I do are, I'm just making a buck'" - it might not be fair, but that's how it's done; that's the game that's played.
Coincidentally, my dad (not knowing what I was watching) turned to me and told me that this it's now going to be allowed in the U.K. (where I am). Before now, things like the 'Coca Cola' name on the Coke bottles on 'American Idol', or cereal names on boxes seen on shows, were blurred out. Not any more. Why? Because advertising agencies here just aren't making enough cash.
Soo...I'm not sure I agree that some of the points made in the video are the particularly bad side of marketing (other than sexism), but I do believe other areas in advertising have a negative effect on a lot of children (and adults), and I do wish we'd do more to help stop this.