“We call on both industries to deploy their talents to promote healthier choices for children and adolescents," said William E. Kovacic, commission chairman.
The report did note, however, that advertising campaigns seemed to tilt in a healthier direction since 2005, when the FTC sponsored a workshop on food marketing and the Institutes of Medicine published a report heavy with research-based evidence on the connections between marketing and childhood obesity.
For parents following along, the age of 12 got a lot of play in yesterday's report. Food companies were urged to set nutritional guidelines in marketing to children younger than 12.
From the standpoint of child development, I'd love to dig further into what happens in children's brains after the age of 12 that makes them less vulnerable to advertising. Some earlier research has shown that it's around age 7 or 8 that children start to understand "persuasive intent" -- though even that is in dispute in some quarters. For example, advertisers want to argue that kids are getting savvier and savvier these days, while child advocates say that's an unfounded excuse, not based in cognitive research, for pushing commercials on younger and younger kids.
Anyone out there know of recent child-development research on when, cognitively speaking, children will be best able to navigate the sea of media messages out there? Of course, I can't help but note that even adult humans (yes, that would include me too) have a hard time recognizing when their minds are being molded.
[For some of my older posts on this subject, see Kids say 'yum' to
Mickey D's (Aug. 14 2007) and At Forum on Food
Marketing and Kids, Participants Left Hungry for New Approaches (Mar.
28, 2007).]
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