Band 6+: There is an increasing amount of advertising directed at children, which encourages them to buy goods such as toys and snacks. Many parents are worried that these advertisements put too much pressure on children, while some advertisers claim that they provide useful information to children. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Advertisements are all around us, especially advertising targeting children, who are considered vulnerable targets by companies. As a result, many parents are worried that their children are being wrongly influenced by ads. However, some advertisers claim that they provide beneficial information to children. In the following paragraphs I intend to discuss both perspectives.

It is not difficult to see why parents’ worry is justified. Children, under a certain age, lack abilities to make wise judgments as to what they really want. They are attracted by colourful pictures on advertisement, and swayed by misleading information. So, they pester their parents to buy those things, and this can upset the budget of many families. Even the advertisements of fast foods are bad for children. Children cannot understand that the slim-trim models advertising Mac Donalds burgers hardly ever eat such foods themselves. They are attracted to fast foods and these are very detrimental for their health.

What is more, some ads show some stunts, and although it is written that children should not copy these stunts, children hardly ever read that part and in their ignorance try to perform those stunts and get hurt. For example, in my neighbourhood, one child tried to jump from one rooftop to the other after seeing the ad of Thumbs Up and ended up with a plaster on his leg. Therefore, parents are rightly worried.

On the other hand, advertisements also provide beneficial information to the children. For example, the advert of Colgate toothpaste, which tells that we should brush our teeth twice daily, is good for children. Then there are ads about health drinks such as Complan and Bournvita, which are good for children. Furthermore, advertisements also touch important issues, such as ads against wastage of water, ads for tree plantation, ads against wastage of electricity and ads for keeping the surroundings clean. Children are motivated by these ads and try to follow the good things they learn.

To conclude, it is true that some adverts have a detrimental effect on children and should have some regulations, but at the same time this fact can also be not bedenied that adverts enlighten children in many ways by providing a lot of useful information.