Yale Rudd Center Brief: Older Children Still Vulnerable to Marketing

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New research by the Yale Rudd Center explains how marketing negatively not only affects young children, but also impacts adolescents aged 12 and older.

“[The food industry] considers children ages 12 and older to be appropriate targets for marketing that encourages consumption of products that can harm
their health. Yet recent research provides convincing evidence that unhealthy food marketing also negatively affects children 12 years and olde,” Yale Rudd Center notes in the report.

Highlights from the report include:

• The adolescent brain is highly vulnerable to marketing, especially when it’s pushing really tempting stuff.
• The ways kids are being targeted – through social media and mobile phones – can seem like fun and games. Making it even harder to recognize.
• Companies have actually increased marketing of some of the most unhealthy products to kids 12 and older.
• Older kids are establishing themselves as more independent from their parents, making them particularly vulnerable.
• Older kids already have some of the highest rates of consumption of unhealthy products.
• Food companies spend over $1 billion annually on marketing to teens (12 and older).

You can read the full report here and find more information on marketing to children in Mom’s Rising’s blog on this new report.