IN THIS ISSUE
JOIN US ON SEPT. 20th FOR 2 IMPORTANT
EVENTS
I.
The 2nd annual Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children
(SCEC) Summit: Consuming Kids: Marketers' Impact on
Children's Health
WHEN: Friday, September 20, 2002
8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
WHERE: The Yale Club of New York
50 Vanderbilt Avenue (across from Grand Central Station)
Hear from health care professionals, educators,
nutritionists and advocates
how children's health is being harmed and what we can do
about it.
Space is limited and registration is essential.
Contact: scec@jbcc.harvard.edu.
Once again our summit takes place at the same time and
location as
Kidscreen Magazine's Advertising and Promoting to Kids
Conference,
where marketers hear state of the art reports on
techniques for marketing
to children and where the Golden Marble Awards, the
advertising
industry's "celebration" of marketing to children,
will be announced.
II.
The 3rd Annual SCEC Protest of the Golden Marble Awards
WHEN: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
WHERE: Outside of the Yale Club of New York
50 Vanderbilt Avenue (across from Grand Central Station)
Once again, SCEC will protest the Golden Marble awards by
calling attention to the harm inflicted by intense marketing
to children.
Bring your friends!
For more information about the day check our website: www.commercialexploitation.com
To register for the Summit contact scec@jbcc.harvarfd.edu
PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD - send information
about the summit and protest to your friends and colleagues.
WELCOME NEW
STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBERS
We are pleased to welcome Dr. Jane Levine, Mr. Larry Levine,
Dr. Priscilla Hambrick-Dixon, and Dr. Velma LaPoint to
our steering committee:
The Levines are the founders of Kids Can Make a Difference
(www.kidscanmakeadifference.org),
an organization devoted to inspiring
kids to end poverty and humger in their communities, their
country and
their world.
Dr. Hambrick-Dixon is an Assistant Professor of Educational
Foundations
and Counseling Programs at Hunter College.
Dr. LaPoint is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Human
Development and Psychoeducational Studies School of
Education,
Howard University.
Drs. Hambrick-Dixon and Lapoint organized the first ever
Study Group
and Invitational Scholar's Forum on Corporate and Industry
Influences on
Children's Development at Howard University in 1999. The
seeds of our
coalition were planted at that conference. Those of us who
thought we
were alone in our concerns about marketing to children,
found we were
mistaken. Let's continue to work together!
LA
SCHOOL BOARD BANS SODA MACHINES IN SCHOOLS
The Los Angeles School Board voted to ban soda machines from
schools.
They are joining school boards around the country, including
Seattle, WA
and Oakland, CA, who refuse to fund children's education at
the
expense of their health.
RESEARCH
LINKS VIEWING MEDIA VIOLENCE TO KIDS' AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR
A new study reports that in addition to contributing to
aggressive behavior,
viewing media violence also fosters rude and mean-spirited
behavior and a
sense of suspicion and mistrust in children. The study,
conducted by
researchers at Brigham Young University, the National
Institute on Media
and the Family, and St. Mary's University, was conducted
with 3rd, 4th
and 5th graders. For more information: www.mediafamily.org
CHILDHOOD
OBESITY EPIDEMIC ATTRIBUTED TO ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
A recent article in the British medical journal LANCET
reviewed the
research on childhood obesity, and concluded that, because
the [childhood
obesity] epidemic was not caused mainly by inherent
biological defects,
increased funding for research and health care, or focusing
on new treatments, will probably not solve the problem
without fundamental
measures to detoxify the environment. The authors suggested
a range of
possible reforms, among them eliminating soft drinks and
candy from
school vending machines, imposing taxes on fast food and
soft drinks,
subsidizing nutritious foods, prohibiting food
advertising and marketing
directed at children, and regulating political contributions
from the food
industry.
Ebbeling C, Pawlak DB, Ludwig DS. Childhood obesity:
Public-health crisis, common sense cure. The Lancet, Vol.
360, August 10, 2002.
All authors are with the Division of Endocrinology,
Childrens Hospital Boston, Ma.
STOP AIMING
PORN MARKETING AT GIRLS
SCEC member Dads and Daughters' current ACTION is putting
pressure
on Buffalo Jeans by David Bitton. The company shamelessly
sexualizes
girls in their ads, and launches new fashion lines with
events with titles
such as "Porn Stars and Perverts" and "Pimps
N' Ho's". (A Buffalo Jeans
ad in the August CosmoGirl magazine shows a young woman in a
pornographic pose.
See: http://www.dadsanddaughters.org/buffaloaction.htm)
Tell anyone you know who cares about girls to add their
voice!!!
Pass the ACTION along to Internet groups, listservs,
professional
networks, etc. Tell them to help stop irresponsible
marketing to the
preteen readers of girls' magazines. Act now to:
A. Tell the national department store chain Macy's to
stop carrying
Buffalo Jeans unless David Bitton changes its marketing.
Go to: http://capwiz.com/dads/issues/alert/?alertid=429231
B. Ignore Buffalo Jeans during your back-to-school
shopping
C. Ask your local store managers to tell David Bitton
that they
won't stock their clothes unless they clean up their act.
SCEC NEWS ~ Fall 2002 Part 2
SCEC
News is a regular service for members and friends of the
Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children coalition.
SCEC's mission is to stop commercial exploitation
of children through action, advocacy, research, and
collaboration among organizations and individuals who care
about children.
IN THIS ISSUE
2nd
ANNUAL SCEC SUMMIT ON THE HARMS OF MARKETING TO
CHILDREN A GREAT SUCCESS!
On September 20, at the New York Yale Club, SCEC held its
second annual
summit on Marketing to Children, "Consuming Kids:
Marketers' Impact on
Children's Health." Held, once again, in the same
building and at the same
time as Kidscreen's Advertising and Promoting to Kids
Conference, the Summit
generated a great deal of press including an editorial news
article in the
prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. Other press
coverage includes a
column by Patricia McLaughlin syndicated by Universal Press,
as well as articles
in News Day, The New York Times on line, Reuters, and The
Independent in
Great Britain. Watch our website, www.commercialexploitation.com,
for links to
press coverage and more information about the Summit,
including presenters
and topics. Summaries of the presenters' presentations
will also posted soon.
SCEC
PROTESTS GOLDEN MARBLE AWARDS FOR 3RD STRAIGHT YEAR. WE'RE
MAKING PROGRESS!
As in previous years, this year's Golden Marble Awards, the
industry awards for
advertisement and promotional campaigns directed at
children, were announced at
the Advertising and Promoting to Kids conference.
However, in a break with
previous years, there was NO gala event to mark the
occasion. After our first two
years of protest against them, this year they seemed to be
downplaying the awards.
Let's keep the pressure on - we're making progress!
Even as childhood obesity and eating disorders are on the
rise, the Golden Marble
Awards persist in celebrating marketing junk food to
children; this was an area of
special focus of our efforts this year. As you can
see, a list of this year's winners
reads like a who's who for childhood obesity:
The honorees for advertisements include:
* Saatchi and Saatchi - General Mills Fruit by
the Foot
* Kidcom worldwide - Burger King
* Saatchi and Saatchi - General Mills Fruit Roll
Up
* Leo Burnett - Kellogg's Eggo Waf-fulls
The Golden Marble honorees for promotion campaigns linking
products and
children's media programs include:
* Dreamworks for tie-ins with the animated film
Shrek with companies like
Baskin Robbins, Amercian Licorice Brand, Heinz and Burger
King.
* Marketing Agent Norm Marshall for a Baskin
Robbins/Shrek promotion. The
ice cream chain created two new flavors for the film.
According to an advance
copy of Kidscreen magazine, sales at Baskin Robbins for May
and June rose 9.4%
and 8.3% over the previous year.
* Cartoon Network and Kellogg, who had already
partnered with a Power Puff
Girls' cereal, invited kids not only to vote for a cartoon
short that will be made
into a real cartoon show, but to pick which Cartoon Network
character could have
its own cereal. A 5% increase in Cartoon Network viewership
between the ages of
2 and 11 is attributed to the campaign which appeared
through a tv spot, ads in
grocery stores, and on about 30 billion boxes of cereal.
A
COALITION FIGHTS FOOD ADVERTISING IN AUSTRALIA
Concern about the high-powered marketing of junk food to
children and how it is
harming their health is not just the focus of activists in
the United States. A group
of influential organizations and individuals in Australia
have formed a
COALITION ON FOOD ADVERTISING TO CHILDREN (CFAC).
CFAC claims that Australia has the highest rate of TV food
advertising to
children in the world and that almost 80% of food
advertisements during
children's programming time is for food low in nutritional
value and high in fat,
sugar, and salt. It is calling for tightened regulations to
protect children.
More information can be found at www.youngmedia.org.au.
2002-2003
TRUCE MEDIAVIOLENCE AND CHILDREN ACTION GUIDE
TRUCE (Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's
Entertainment), a grass roots
organization of early childhood educators concerned about
how media, media
violence and popular culture affect children, has just
released the 2002-2003
TRUCE MEDIA VIOLENCE AND CHILDREN ACTION GUIDE.
The Guide provides materials to support parent's efforts to
reduce the
harm and promote change.
The guide will be available on the TRUCE web site shortly at
www.truceteachers.org.
The PDF file can be downloaded in a form that is perfect
for making copies to distribute.
By mid-November the group will also have its 8th annual
2002-2003 TRUCE
TOY ACTION GUIDE available on the web site. It is
designed to help adults
make good gift choices for children over the holiday season.
HEALTHY NEWSLETTERS
Three HEALTHY NEWSLETTERS, published by Bridge
Communications,
advocate for the families of children in grades PreK-3, 4-5,
and 6-8. The
Newsletters provide accurate health information promoting
healthy schools and
health education in schools. Last spring, Healthy
Choices for parents of students
in grades 6-8 carried an article discussing a high
school in Wisconsin that
features milk in its vending machines. SCHOOL VENDING
MACHINES GOT
MILK, along with other Healthy Newsletter articles can be
found at
www.Bridge-Comm.com.
In print since 1992, the Newsletters have reached over 10
million families in 35
states and were mentioned recently in Jane Brody's health
column in the New
York Times. They carry no advertising, discuss both physical
and mental health
issues and are reviewed by 20 leading health educators,
preschool experts, and
pediatricians. For more information call
1-800-808-9314.
CITIZEN'S
CAMPAIGN FOR COMMERCIAL-FREE SCHOOLS
HOLDS FIRST STATEWIDE CONFERENCE
The Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools (CCCS), a
rapidly growing, grassroots organization in Washington
State, is working hard to
get rid of commercialism in public schools. They recently
held their first
statewide conference, drawing 50 participants from around
the state--a good
cross-section of teachers, parents, health professionals,
students and others.
CCCS won a big victory last fall by getting the Seattle
School District to ban
many forms of commercialism -- including Channel tne -- in
its 100 schools.
This year, CCCS is developing a bill to ban junk
food sales and marketing in
schools statewide. With over 1800 individual
supporters and 30 local and state
organizational allies, they've been called 'a potent
lobbying force' by the Seattle
Times. Check them out at www.scn.org/cccs
or call 206.523.4922.
