The Myth Of Choice: The Negative Effects Of Advertising On Children

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Today teens and adolescents are exposed to more advertisements than ever before at 40,000 per year on television commercials alone. But what are the main issues of advertising, and how is this causing children to make poor choices? Devious advertisements are part of everyday life ranging everywhere from video game ads to cartoon characters on a cereal box. Excessive advertising to children is harmful, unhealthy, and must be regulated.

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Companies use many manipulative techniques to get children and teens hooked on their products at an early age. They make a profit by creating products that are, according to “The Myth of Choice: How Junk Food Marketers Target Our Kids,” simple to brand, cheap to create, and ,made to be addictive. …show more content…

In response to this astonishing investigation movie theaters agreed that ads for R-rated movies should NOT be permitted to appear before G-rated movies. Unfortunately common children's movies also advertise alcohol and other popular products. “AAP News” went on to state that 8 alcohol businesses advertised their products in 233 different films and in multiple episodes of 181 different television shows. These companies care more about money than they do about the wellbeing of children and …show more content…

In fact, according to the “AAP News and Journaling Gateway,” food marketers spend $2 billion in endorsing food products, and another $2.5 billion per year in publicizing restaurants. Unfortunately, only 3% of these advertisements promote healthy and nutritious foods. Companies don’t think about what’s best for children. Instead they do all they can to try to extract money from them. Fast food franchises continue to get more and more savvy, using toys and cartoons to market their fast food products to children as young as 3. Today cartoons and toys are featured in nearly 20% of fast food

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