Cartoons bad for your kid's health?
Charlene Laino, Cartoons bad for your kid’s health?, MSNBC Home, 18 Mar 1999
-----------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK, March 18 — At least two-thirds of animated films produced for children feature a character who smokes or drinks alcohol — with no indication that such behaviors may be bad for your health, a new study shows. The finding comes at a time when alcohol and tobacco companies are increasingly using the Internet to target vulnerable youths, according to a second report.
A THIRD study shows that the more time a child sits in front of the television, the more likely he is to be obese.
But school-based programs that focus on getting kids off the couch and onto the playground can help them to shed unhealthy pounds, a fourth report finds.
The new studies were all released Thursday at an American Medical Association briefing here about the media’s impact on health behaviors.
The finding that the majority of film-length cartoons produced over the past 60 years feature characters who use tobacco and alcohol — with no indication that such behaviors are declining in films made in the health-conscious ’90s — most surprised conference moderator “Dr. Drew” Pinsky. The father of six-year-old triplets, Pinsky said he has sat through dozens of films without ever realizing the possible health consequences.
“I’m going to begin discussions with my kids right away,” said Pinsky, co-host of MTV’s Loveline and program medical director of chemical dependency services at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, Calif. “Even at six, youngsters understand the language of consequences, the difference between good and bad.”
But what will make his and other parents’ chats with their kids particularly difficult is that “good” characters in animated films are actually more likely to smoke and drink than “bad” characters, said study author Dr. Adam O. Goldstein, assistant professor of family medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Among the films which feature “good” people doing “bad” things are: “Pinocchio,” in which the title character drinks beer; “Dumbo,” in which the elephant gets drunk on wine; and “James and the Giant Peach,” in which Centipede smokes cigars and drinks wine.
While there is no direct proof that the cartoons lead to poor health as one ages, Goldstein said the fact that tens of millions of young children watch the films, often repeatedly, should be taken as a wake-up call.
“The success of cartoon-based campaigns such as Joe Camel — which has been shown in studies to make teens more likely to smoke — points to a real problem,” he said.
His suggestion: that tobacco and alcohol be left out entirely of animated films — just as sex is left out — or that the harmful effects be emphasized.
For the study, the researchers examined 50 G-rated animated feature films released between 1937 and 1997 by MGM/United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Co. and Warner Brothers Studios.
NET TARGETS YOUTHS
A second study, which examined more than 50 alcohol sites on the Net, showed that more than eight in 10 beer sites have features that would appeal to youth, said Kathryn C. Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education (CME) in Washington, D.C. And nearly three-fourths of spirits sites similarly target youngsters, she said.
One tequila site, for example, offers a Road Hog game, in which one can ride all over a desert strewn with tequila bottles, Montgomery said. Also, liquor sites are building up virtual communities where one can meet others who like to drink in chat rooms hosted by virtual bartenders, she said.
While tobacco companies don’t have as great a presence on the Web, there are still some problems. One German company offers an innovative and very alluring cartoon character that behaves “like a virtual pet,” urging users to feed it when hungry or pet it if it is upset.
CME is currently studying blocking technologies, or filters, to help parents restrict their children’s access to inappropriate sites.
“But,” she adds, “a lot of the sites target teens, who are Net-savvy enough to get around such roadblocks.”
Her advice thus echoes that of Dr. Drew: Talk to your kids.
IDLING AWAY THE TIME
But attendees at the conference weren’t just concerned about what children are watching: Just idling away in front of the set tends to make kids fat, they said.
In fact, a recent report showed that more than 35 percent of children who watch five or more hours of television a day are obese, compared with fewer than 20 percent of those who spend an hour or less in front of the TV each day, said Dr. William Dietz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
In an effort to reverse the trend, Steven L. Gortmaker, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, started Planet Health. The two-year school program focuses on:
Decreasing television viewing to less than two hours per day;
Increasing moderate and vigorous physical activity;
Decreasing consumption of high-fat foods;
Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.
Gortmaker followed over 1,200 junior-high age kids over a two-year period, half of whom went to five schools that had the program and half enrolled in schools that did not offer Planet Health.
The findings:
Children enrolled in the program watched two hours fewer TV a day, on average, than those who did not undergo the program.
The prevalence of obesity declined from 23.6 percent to 20.3 percent among girls in the schools exposed to the Planet Health intervention.
Girls not enrolled in the program tended to gain weight, with 21.5 percent obese at the study’s start, compared with 23.7 percent two years later.
There was little change among boys in both groups of schools.
Dietz’s advice to parents: “Limit your kids’ time in front of the tube to two hours a day. And no TVs in the bedroom.”
