“Or children need a commercial free childhood”
To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Nowadays advertising is more and more aimed on children and these ones can’t escape from it. In fact advertising is everywhere: on television, on the internet, on the street and even at school in the playground. But why are children the target of so much companies and is it a danger for them?

It’s an absolute certainty that commercials exploit children. But why? For a start children are easy prey on comparison with adults which are able to consider what do they need or not and what is good for them. On the contrary children are too immature. The first reaction of a child in front of a product isn’t to use intellect but feelings which suggest him to consume. Moreover children are all fans of some super-heros and so they are easily manipulated when companies use such imaginary characters in their advert. For example Vidalia onions employed the ogre Shrek to promote onions and every child started eating onions.
However commercials take advantage of children’s naivety and conditioned them to be quickly bored and to always want the new trendy “thing”. They make them “super consumers” who think like “me, me and you, me and this thing”. In this way companies can easily make big profits but may endanger children childhood.

Companies force children to consume but what they advert is often not good for them. For instance some commercials which sell junk food are aimed on children. That’s why the raise of obese or diabetic children increased these last years. Some else advert video games which can provoke problems of behaviour, nervousness and inactivity.
Furthermore, advertising make children think in a particular way. Boys have to be strong and violent whereas girls have to be pretty and trendy. So children can’t make up their own mind about how they have to be or to react because of all these stereotypes around them.

On the other hand the economic stakes involved