Now that I am kicking major butt again (TOOT, TOOT MY OWN HORN!!!!) and on my second full month at the gym, I am reading books I have collected over the past year or two. My latest victory was Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children from the Onslaught of Marketing & Advertsing by Susan Linn and I’m so glad I actually read it!!!!It basically highlights the insanity of corporate marketing to children and just how pervasive it is in our country. It is shocking to learn that the U.S. is one of only a handful of countries in the world that does NOT have laws against direct advertising to children. Thanks to the Federal Communications Commission who deregulated childrens TV in 1984 and basically gave advertisers the green light to barrage our children to buy, buy, and buy MORE!Linn makes a strong case in the book that marketing and advertising to children is NEVER be in their best interest. She makes her case that children are conditioned to be consumers from the time they are infants and every brand is competing for our kids to be the life-time customer they want. Linn shares over and over how marketing to children is only in the interest of the marketing agencies and corporations that directly profit from this 15 billion dollar industry. It is NEVER in the best interest of children. NEVER.Many people will say it’s the parents job to counter the affect of ads on kids and that parents must be involved in preventing the exploitation of children through ads. People complain that if we parents weren’t just so indulgent our children would have a sense of responsibility as consumers. Yet, time and time again, Linn argues that we parents are up against media and marketing 24/7 and an industry that spends more advertising to children than it does adults. In the chapter discussing the “Nag Factor” and other devious plans advertisers use to get children to undermine our parental authority….our children are actually taught whining skills to us to buy the products and help secure for brands for that “cradle to grave brand loyalty”. This is so terrible but has become so effective, ugh....The book explains really well how children are marketed to EVERYWHERE–from at home, to school, sports fields, magazines, the Internet, playgrounds, on the street....The book does include many recommendations of what YOU can do to make changes. I appreciated how Linn broke this section down into practical recommendations for people like me!After reading this book and a few others, I’m on board and ready to do my part. It will become part of my social mission to protect my little nugget from this :)
