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Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children from the Onslaught of Marketing & Advertising By Susan Linn ( Anchor )
Release Date: 2005-08-09
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Product Description
The average American child sees about 40,000 television commercials every year. Companies target younger viewers all the time, selling everything from sugar cereals to minivans, and cross-promotional marketing influences everything from the food stocked in school vending machines to the characters who appear in children’s books. Kids are requesting specific brands as soon as they can talk. American corporations spend over $15 billion yearly on marketing to children in an effort to cultivate nagging, insatiable, “cradle-to-grave” consumers.
In this shocking and engrossing exposé, psychologist Susan Linn reveals how the marketing industry preys on kids from the day they’re born, exploiting their vulnerabilities and skewing their values in order to influence what they eat, wear, and play with. This advertising blitz stifles creativity and exacerbates obesity, eating disorders, violence, sexual precocity, and substance abuse. Linn—a mother herself—recognizes that parents alone are no match for the marketing experts. What they need is the concerted help of healthcare professionals, educators, and legislators who have children’s best interests in mind. Consuming Kids is a call to action for anyone who cares about the well-being of children.
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 Towards an end to the commercialization of childhood ( malvin3 )
"Consuming Kids" by Susan Linn builds a solid case against marketing to children. As a Harvard educator specializing in psychiatry and a children's entertainer, Ms. Linn is in an unique position to understand how corporate marketing harms and exploits children's psychic vulnerabilities for profit. Written for a general audience, the author inspires and encourages us to join the campaign to protect children from commercial exploitation.
On the one hand, Ms. Linn's feigned sense of outrage and overly reliant use of rhetorical questions tends to make some of her arguments appear somewhat contrived. For example, the author relates to us her shock upon discovering that businesspeople at a particular professional marketing conference were principally concerned with gaining market share and not with the best interests of children. While her descriptions of some of the invasive techniques that have been cooked up by marketers to cynically manipulate children in service to the corporate bottom line are objectionable, few but the most myopic readers should be surprised.
On the other hand, the facts remain indisputably on Ms. Linn's side. The author cites numerous studies that document the negative consequences associated with marketing junk food, alcohol, violence and sex to children. To cite just one example, we learn that the habitual viewing of wrestling programs on TV is highly correlated with risky behaviors among boys including reckless driving, drinking and fighting. The author is at her best towards the end of the book as she applies her analytical skills to consider how young people might be conditioned by the marketing industry into a state of compulsion and consumption to the point where their ability to participate in meaningful democratic discourse has been irreparably impaired. Ms. Linn goes on to provide us with a list of worthy organizations that are dedicated to the struggle of curbing the marketing onslaught in order to help build a better future for our children and ourselves.
I recommend this informative and persuasive book to everyone.
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 Scary, but necessary ( j_eeves )
This book was a real wake up call to an already wary consumer. After reading this, you will understand exactly how relentless and saavy the advertising industry is at getting kids to successfully beg/nag for unneeded and/or potentially harmful products. One of the main conclusions of the book is that television is not appropriate for children 2 and under. Over that age, parents should use extreme discretion. Don't give advertisers the "cradle to grave" brand loyalty they are seeking. That's just nuts.
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Excellent ( chocoscientist )
This book has really helped us to open our eyes and look at our current culture and how it might impact our new son. It covers media and mass marketing and how unscrupulous marketing to children has become. Before I read this I didn't understand just how insidious some of the marketing is and I would just mark parents who complained about it as "a little crazy or too strict".
I know of parents who are experiencing some of the issues brought up in the book: the wrestling and anger mgt problems, girls trying to dress too old etc. And these kids live in good homes, with parents trying their best to raise them right. As I read the book I started to make correlations all over the place. I think the author hit the issues spot-on.
Because of this book we do NOT turn on the TV when he is awake anymore and make purchasing decisions more wisely.
I originally checked this out of the library, but decided it was a keeper and purchased it. I am also recommending it to many of my friends of kids of all ages.
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Addiction
