Preventive Intervention to Improve Children's Discrimination of the Persuasive Tactics in Televised Advertising

Television viewing is causally related to obesity and poor dietary habits in children. A contributing factor to this relationship is the sugared breakfast cereals and snack food advertisements repeatedly presented on children's television. Past research suggests the advertising on television may have an unfair persuasive effect on children. In the present study, children in an after school day care center effectively learned to discriminate information and persuasive techniques presented in commercial televised advertising, while children in an experimenter contact control group did not show such learning. The importance of such discrimination for educated consumer behavior is discussed and specific future research directions are described.