Children are the Target of Advertisements

Now a days children watch more television programs where they become the target for some advertisements. The use of computers and electronic devices also influence children when advertisements appear while they play their favorite games on those electronics. Advertisements are the merchant’s media to sell a product to the public. Almost everyone in the United States watches a lot of advertisements while they are watching their favorite television program every day. Most of this viewers are children, therefore children become the main target because they are easier to influence.

One bad thing about TV advertisements is that is a reason why children are becoming obese. Caroline Knorr explain in her article “Commercialism: Keeping Kids Safe and Savvy” how in the US one out of three children are in risk for becoming obese (par. 1). This means that kids in every family are in risk of becoming obese if we don’t do something about it. Knorr states about how in the US TV ads have almost 90 percent of televised ads for junk food (par. 2) this proof that ads are one of the first influences of obesity. Knorr writes, “There is a direct connection between ads and eating habits” (par. 7). This show us the real impact of junk food advertisements. Most American kids get their daily calories from soft drinks, sweets, salty snacks, and fast food (Knorr, par. 7), which is the main reason children are eating junk food, because they see it in almost every ad they see in different media or magazines. Knorr explains how kids associate pleasure with junk food, eventually this leads to an unhealthy habit (pars. 7- 8), habits that are real hard to break, and there is were obesity begins. The problem with TV ads is that kids aren’t ready to understand w...

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...advertisements. For example Knorr explains a way to teach children the difference between a commercial and a television program (par. 10). This helps the children brain focus more on a TV program rather than in commercial ads. “Using Vaseline to make hamburgers look juicy” (Knorr par. 10). This is dirty trick ads use to make food look good, we as adults have to teach our children that most of the time ads are fake. Something you have to teach your children since first day is that they must know that the main job of an ad is sell a product (Knorr par. 10). It’s a fact that most of the time children buy products that they don’t even want or like just because they saw that product on a television ad.

In conclusion, advertisements are a bad influence to children, especially to those age 8 or younger, because they are not ready to understand the real meaning of ads.