Are children under excessive commercial pressure to be seen buying and wearing fashionable brands?
YES. The average American child watches an estimate between 25,000 to 40,000 television commercials per year. In the UK, it is about 10,000 $15-17 billion is spent by companies advertising to children in the US. Over $4 billion was spent in 2009 by the fast food industry alone. The marketing seems to be worth it. For example, Teens in the US spend around $160 billion a year Children (up to 11) spend around $18 billion a year “Tweens” (8-12 year olds) “heavily influence” more than $30 billion in other spending by parents, and “80 percent of all global brands now deploy a ‘tween strategy.’” Children (under 12) and teens influence parental purchases totaling over $130-670 billion a year.
The Journal of the American Medical Association has said that children between the ages of two and seventeen watch an annual average of 15,000 to 18,000 hours of television, compared with 12,000 hours spent per year in school. Children are also major targets for TV advertising, whose impact is greater than usual because there is an apparent lessening of influence by parents and others in the older generation.… According to the [Committee on Communications of the American Academy of Pediatrics], children under the age of two should not watch television at all because at that age, brain development depends heavily on real human interactions.
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