Scholars Urge Candidates To Protect Children From Violent Advertising

More than 50 scholars, led by members of the Harvard Medical School faculty, wrote to the U.S. presidential candidates earlier this month to urge them to take action against marketing violence to children.

In their letter, the scholars argued that advertising aimed at children has reached alarming proportions in recent years and now constitutes a public health problem.

"Children pay for marketing," the professors wrote. "They deserve a government committed to protecting them from exploitation."

The professors wrote that by the time today's children graduate from high school, they will have seen more than 360,000 television commercials each. This advertising inures them to violence, creates negative body image, and interests them in unhealthy foods, they said.

"Both the amount of advertising and its sophistication has had a major influence on child development," said Allen D. Kanner, an associate of the Wright Institute at the University of California at Berkley who signed the letter. "It is molding how children think and feel about themselves and others. They judge themselves and other people on what they have and what they buy."

The letter said that while a number of other countries restrict marketing to kids--Belgium for instance, bans commercials during children's TV--America lacks any policy of its own.

The scholars called for a ban on advertising to children of products known to be harmful to them, and a ban on advertising in schools. They also proposed a White House conference on corporate marketing and its effects on children and funding for research on the health consequences of marketing.

The group has not heard back from the candidates, according to Susan E. Linn, the instructor in psychiatry who led the effort.

Linn said that these regulations are needed because children cannot filter, censor or effectively judge commercials.

"Young children especially have trouble distinguishing between commercials and programming," Linn said. "They tend to believe what they see."

Marketing to adults is different, said William R. Beardslee, chair of the psychiatry department at the medical school, who signed the letter.

"The basic point about advertising to an adult is that we believe that adults are free and capable of choosing," he said. "We are believed to be capable of making an independent choice and we don't need protection from advertising."

In addition to Linn and Beardslee signers from the Harvard community are Presley Professor of Psychiatry emeritus Leon Eisenberg, Hobbs Professor of Education Howard E. Gardner, Brazelton Professor of Pediatrics and Master of Adams House Judith Palfrey, Professor of Psychiatry Alvin F. Poussaint, Senior Lecturer on Women's Studies Juliet B. Schor, and Graduate School of Education Lecturer Richard J. Weissbourd.

--Staff writer Joshua E. Gewolb can be reached at gewolb@fas.harvard.edu.