Advertising is negatively affecting children's development and view of themselves. So if you can, see what your country is doing about this issue. So far I've only found Australia talking about this.
I think this is a significant children's rights issue. Advertising already as an effect on adult's self esteem and self image, we can't let these companies affect our children too. (tw, mention of ads that sexualize children.)
"There is strong feeling around Australia that during childhood, and certainly during the pre-teen years, children should be free to develop at their own pace, in their own ways.
Widespread public discussion followed the release of the Australia Institute’s discussion paper number 90, Corporate Paedophilia (Rush and La Nauze 2006), and many Australians voiced their concern that children’s freedom to develop at their own pace and in their own ways is under threat from heavily sexualised advertising and marketing. While parents do their best to protect their children, many feel that they are losing the battle.
Children are only likely to be able to develop freely if government assists parents by limiting sexualising pressure at its source – advertisers and marketers. Current regulation mechanisms are failing in this task.
Sources of premature sexualisation
As discussed at length in Corporate Paedophilia, the most significant sources of premature sexualisation are girls’ magazines and advertising material. Television
programs, in particular music video programs, teen soap operas like The O.C. and reality television shows such as Big Brother also play a role.
Each month twenty per cent of six-year-old girls and almost half of ten- and elevenyear-old girls read at least one of the most popular girls’ magazines – Barbie Magazine, Total Girl and Disney Girl. These magazines teach their young readers to dance in sexually provocative ways, to idolise highly sexualised young women such as Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan, and to have crushes on adult male celebrities – all while they are still in primary school.
Children are unavoidably exposed to heavily sexualised d outdoor advertising as well as to some television advertising. On average, children aged five to eleven watch approximately 20 hours of television or videos each week (ABS 2003, p. 32). Most outdoor and television advertising sexualises adults, but children pick up the message that being sexy is the way to be successful and feel good about oneself.
In some cases, advertising directly sexualises children. Examples include a Renault television commercial that showed a pre pubescent boy admiring an adult woman’s legs through the Renault’s sunroof, and an Ingham’s chicken nuggets television commercial that showed a young boy and girl kissing furtively on the couch, in the manner of older teenagers about to make out, when the supervising parent left the room.
Risks of premature sexualisation: Premature sexualisation carries a range of risks for children. The capacity of children to develop healthy body image and self-esteem is compromised
by pressure to look like miniature adults."
