Ban on Advertisement Aimed at Children

What has the world come to? Parents all over the world treat their children as their number one priority, and they are often obsessed with the child's protection, be it from an illness, danger and even certain people. Despite all this protection, we allow our children to be allured into the 'wonderful' world of advertising. From such an early age we are told by our parents 'don't talk to strangers'. How is it that after 30 seconds of TV, associating products with our favourite characters or even glancing at a poster in the street, our children are instantly convinced by the strangers of the world of advertising?

There are two types of products on which manufacturers are willing to spend millions of euros convincing children to demand that their parents buy them. The first is the massive and very powerful food and drinks industry. From a very early age children are bombarded with images of food and drink on TV, in newspapers and magazines, on the internet and even at the cinema in a technique known as product placement. I think it is wrong to advertise food and drink to children as they have not developed the skills necessary to judge whether these products contain too much salt or sugar or whether they can form part of a healthy and balanced diet. Also food and drinks should not be associated with popular programmes or cartoon characters. Supermarkets also adopt techniques such as placing sweets and chocolate near the checkout at children's' eye level so that they demand that their parents buy them, in a technique known as "pester power". One of the major threats to our health is obesity, and childhood obesity is a growing problem in the western world. In addition a lot of the sugary drinks aimed at children damage growing teeth. Advertising of food and drinks aimed at children should be banned and parents should choose how to provide their children with a healthy diet and which treats they should occasionally be given.

The second type of product aimed at