Advertising campaigns and adult-like television shows are forcing children to grow up too quickly by pressuring them to act older than they are. They are being exposed to messages that are too mature for them.
Compared to the past when we used fake/plastic make-up, today young girls feel it necessary to put on the real thing. Source: Flickr
The television shows that children are watching also affect their development. Among the top watched shows by kids ages 2- to 11- year-olds, they included iCarly (Nick, 2.7 million), Monster High (Nick, 2.4 million), American Idol Wednesday (2.2 million), and Victorious (Nick, 2 million). For kids 12-year-old and up, shows included Family Guy and The Simpsons.
Tv show Monster High. Source: Google images
Industires and the media have moved in to exploit kids. There are companies selling padded bikinis for seven-year-olds and companies that sell elaborate cosmetics—lipstick, rouge, eyeliners—for 4-to 9-year-old girls. Some of these girls now feel they can’t go outside without their makeup. In 2011 Walmart rolled out a line of anti-aging cosmetics, called Geo Girl, geared toward 8- to 12-year-olds. The line had 69 products ranging from exfoliators (to scrub off dead/old cells) to lipstick and blush. Companies pushed for younger and younger crowds; so now, we have girls in second grade bugging Mom for a push-up bikini and skinny jeans. Research by the American Psychology Association has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising. In commercials, young girls and boys wear designer jeans and sexy hairdos and stand in sexy positions.
Many young children are consumed with anxiety as a reaction to the stress about what to wear to school and whether it will be ‘cool’ or acceptable to their peers. Anxiety has become “a normal part of childhood;” they experience fear, nervousness, and shyness, and they start to avoid places and activities (Anxiety and Depression Association of America).
