Countering our children's culture of junk

[nosmokes]

i think, from my corner of the planet, that much of the root cause of many of our problems may lie right here. more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, newer, newer, newer - it just never stops. and we plant that mindset into em while they're in the womb practically.
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original

September 19, 2004

Countering our children's culture of junk

By Juliet Schor
For The Washington Post

A bubbly young researcher armed with a video camera sits on the bedroom floor with a 5-year-old girl, watching her play and asking her questions. The mother is off in the kitchen. After a bit, the young woman follows the little girl into the bathroom, where empty shampoo and bubble bath bottles have been lined up above the tub. The market researcher has an ``aha'' moment - the little girl has turned the containers into toys.

The health and beauty aids company she's on assignment for could do that, too, she realizes, and after she submits her report, the company redesigns its package to make it look more like a toy.

Around the country, scenes like this are being repeated daily. Advertisers and the companies they represent are doing record levels of research to help market their products to children. They are relying on brain science, reports of child advisers and extensive videotaping of kids in stores, at playgrounds and at home.

Researchers I interviewed recounted their taping sessions in kids' bedrooms, playing with toys or grooming. A ritual as private as bath time has become familiar territory as marketers observe children taking baths and showers to come up with strategies to sell new health and beauty products, or novel approaches for marketing existing ones. They investigate children's closets. They even go to sleepovers.

American parents have been well warned about junk food, how it dominates advertising aimed toward children and how poor eating habits have led a staggering 15 percent of the nation's children into obesity. They are told of the health risks and that a whopping one-third of children born today are expected to eventually develop diabetes.

But it's not just junk food that endangers the health of our children; it's also the ``junk culture'' that surrounds them. And that junk culture is not only making children materialistic, it is making them sick. They are becoming depressed and anxious, my research shows. They are suffering from headaches and stomachaches, too.
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more at original

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Juliet Schor teaches sociology at Boston College and is author of ``Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture'' (Scribner). She is on the advisory board of Commercial Alert, a Portland-based organization that advocates reform of marketing practices.
© The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon



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[teach1st]

1. Thanks for posting this

I teach tweens and I see more and more consumerist behavior each year. I hope for the well-being of our children that articles like this are well-circulated.