Psychologists Urge Restrictions on TV Ads Aimed at 8-year-olds

Children under the age of eight are unable to critically comprehend televised advertising messages and are prone to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate, and unbiased, according to research analyzed by an American Psychological Association task force.

This can lead to unhealthy eating habits, as evidenced by today's youth obesity epidemic. For these reasons, the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children recommended that advertising that targets children under the age of eight be restricted.

"While older children and adults understand the inherent bias of advertising, younger children do not," said psychologist Dale Kunkel, UCSB professor of communication and senior author of the task force's scientific report.

The six-member task force, appointed by the APA in 2000, extensively reviewed the literature on advertising media and its effects on children. Advertisers spend more than $12 billon per year on advertising messages aimed at the youth market. Additionally, the average child watches more than 40,000 television commercials per year.

"Because younger children do not understand persuasive intent in advertising, they are easy targets for commercial persuasion," said task force chair Brian Wilcox, director of the Center on Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Nebraska. "This is a critical concern because the most common products marketed to children are sugared cereals, candies, sweets, sodas, and snack foods.

"Such advertising of unhealthy food products to young children contributes to poor nutritional habits that may last a lifetime and be a variable in the current epidemic of obesity among kids."

Research on children's commercial recall and product preferences confirms that advertising does typically get young consumers to buy its products. From a series of studies examining product choices, said Kunkel and Wilcox, the findings show that children recall content from the ads to which they've been exposed, and preference for a product can occur with as little as a single commercial exposure and be strengthened with repeated exposures.

Furthermore, studies reviewed in the report show that these product preferences can affect children's product purchase requests. This can put pressure on parents' purchasing decisions and instigate parent-child conflicts when parents deny their children's requests, said Kunkel and Wilcox.

There also are concerns regarding certain commercial campaigns primarily targeting adults that pose risk for child-viewers, said Kunkel. "For example, beer ads are commonly shown during sports events and seen by millions of children, creating brand familiarity and more positive attitudes toward drinking." Similar concerns arise with violent video games and movies.

In addition to restrictions on advertising primarily directed at children eight years and younger, the APA urged policymakers to better protect young children from exposure to advertising because of the inherent unfairness of advertising to audiences who lack the capability to evaluate the biased sources of information found in television commercials.