Food advertising on children
This review was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency to examine the current research evidence on:
Children's food promotion is dominated by television advertising, and the great majority of this promotes the so-called 'Big Four' of pre-sugared breakfast cereals, soft drinks, confectionery and savoury snacks. In the last ten years advertising for fast food, outlets have rapidly increased. There is some evidence that the dominance of television has recently begun to wane. The importance of strong, global branding reinforces a need for multi-faceted communications combining television with merchandising, 'tie-ins' and point of sale activity. The advertised diet contrasts sharply with that recommended by public health advisors, and themes of fun and fantasy or taste, rather than health and nutrition, are used to promote it to children. Meanwhile, the recommended diet gets little promotional support.
There is plenty of evidence that children notice and enjoy food promotion. However, establishing whether this actually influences them is a complex problem. The review tackled it by looking at studies that had examined possible effects on what children know about food, their food preferences, their actual food behaviour (both buying and eating), and their health outcomes (eg. Obesity or cholesterol levels). The majority of studies examined food advertising, but a few examined other forms of food promotion. In terms of nutritional knowledge, food advertising seems to have little influence on children's general perceptions of what constitutes a healthy diet, but, in certain contexts, it does have an effect on more specific types of nutritional knowledge. For example, seeing soft drink and cereal adverts reduced primary aged children's ability to determine correctly whether or not certain products contained real fruit.
The review also found evidence that food promotion influences children's food preferences and purchase behaviour. A study of primary school children, for instance, found that exposure to advertising influenced which foods they claimed to like; and another showed that labelling and signage on a vending machine had an effect on what was bought by secondary school pupils. A number of studies have also shown that food advertising can influence what children eat. One, for example, showed that advertising influenced a primary class's choice of daily snack at playtime.
The next step, of trying to establish whether or not a link exists between food promotion and diet or obesity, is extremely difficult as it requires research to be done in real-world settings. A number of studies have attempted this by using the amount of television viewing as a proxy for exposure to television advertising. They have established a clear link between television viewing and diet, obesity, and cholesterol levels. It is impossible to say, however, whether this effect is caused by the advertising, the sedentary nature of television viewing or snacking that might take place whilst viewing. One study resolved this problem by taking a detailed diary of children's viewing habits. This showed that the more food adverts they saw, the more snacks and calories they consumed.
Thus the literature does suggest food promotion is influencing children's diet in a number of ways. This does not amount to proof; as noted above with this kind of research, incontrovertible proof simply isn't attainable. Nor do all studies point to this conclusion; several have not found an effect. In addition, very few studies have attempted to measure how strong these effects are relative to other factors influencing children's food choices. Nonetheless, many studies have found clear effects and they have used sophisticated methodologies that make it possible to determine that i) these effects are not just due to chance; ii) they are independent of other factors that influence diets, such as parents' eating habits or attitudes; and iii) they occur at a brand and category level.
Furthermore, two factors suggest that these findings actually downplay the effect that food promotion has on children. First, the literature focuses principally on television advertising; the cumulative effect of this combined with other forms of promotion and marketing is likely to be significantly greater. Second, the studies have looked at the direct effects of individual children, and understate indirect influences. For example, promotion for fast food outlets may not only influence the child but also encourage parents to take them for meals and reinforce the idea that this is normal and desirable behaviour.
This does not amount to proof of an effect, but in our view does provide sufficient evidence to conclude that an effect exists. The debate should now shift to what action is needed, and specifically to how the power of commercial marketing can be used to bring about improvements in young people's eating.
Finding Our Way
A "Drive 200 yards, and then turn right," says the car's computer voice. You relax in the driver's seat, follow the directions and reach your destination without error. It's certainly nice to have the Global Positioning System (GPS) to direct you to within a few yards of your goal. Yet if the satellite service's digital maps become even slightly outdated, you can become lost. Then you have to rely on the ancient human skill of navigating in three-dimensional space. Luckily, your biological finder has an important advantage over GPS: it does not go awry if only one part of the guidance system goes wrong, because it works in various ways. You can ask questions of people on the sidewalk. Or follow a street that looks familiar. Or rely on a navigational rubric: "If I keep the East River on my left, I will eventually cross 34th Street." The human positioning system is flexible and capable of learning. Anyone who knows the way from point A to point B – and from A to C – can probably figure out how to get from B to C, too.
B But how does this complex cognitive system really work? Researchers are looking at several strategies people use to orient themselves in space: guidance, path integration and route following. We may use all three or combinations thereof. And as experts learn more about these navigational skills, they are making the case that our abilities may underlie our powers of memory and logical thinking. Grand Central, Please Imagine that you have arrived in a place you have never visited – New York City. You get off the train at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan. You have a few hours to explore before you must return for your ride home. You head uptown to see popular spots you have been told about: Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You meander in and out of shops along the way. Suddenly, it is time to get back to the station. But how?
C If you ask passersby for help, most likely you will receive information in many different forms. A person who orients herself by a prominent landmark would gesture southward: "Look down there. See the tall, broad MetLife Building? Head for that – the station is right below it." Neurologists call this navigational approach "guidance," meaning that landmark visible from a distance serves as the marker for one's destination.
D Another city dweller might say: "What places do you remember passing? … Okay. Go toward the end of Central Park, then walk down to St. Patrick's Cathedral. A few more blocks and Grand Central will be off to your left." In this case, you are pointed toward the most recent place you recall, and you aim for it. Once there you head for the next notable place and so on, retracing your path. Your brain is adding together the individual legs of your trek into a cumulative progress report. Researchers call this strategy "path integration." Many animals rely primarily on path integration to get around, including insects, spiders, crabs and rodents. The desert ants of the genus Cataglyphis employ this method to return from foraging as far as 100 yards away. They note the general direction they came from and retrace their steps, using the polarization of sunlight to orient themselves even under overcast skies. On their way back they are faithful to this inner homing vector. Even when a scientist picks up an ant and puts it in a totally different spot, the insect stubbornly proceeds in the originally determined direction until it has gone "back" all of the distance it wandered from its nest. Only then does the ant realize it has not succeeded, and it begins to walk in successively larger loops to find its way home.
E Whether it is trying to get back to the anthill or the train station, any animal using path integration must keep track of its own movements so it knows, while returning, which segments it has already completed. As you move, your brain gathers data from your environment – sights, sounds, smells, lighting, muscle contractions, a sense of time passing – to determine which way your body has gone. The church spire, the sizzling sausages on that vendor's grill, the open courtyard, and the train station – all represent snapshots of memorable junctures during your journey.
F In addition to guidance and path integration, we use a third method for finding our way. An office worker you approach for help on a Manhattan street corner might say: "Walk straight down Fifth, turn left on 47th, turn right on Park, go through the walkway under the Helmsley Building, then cross the street to the MetLife Building into Grand Central." This strategy, called route following, uses landmarks such as buildings and street names, plus directions – straight, turn, go through – for reaching intermediate points. Route following is more precise than guidance or path integration, but if you forget the details and take a wrong turn, the only way to recover is to backtrack until you reach a familiar spot, because you do not know the general direction or have a reference landmark for your goal. The route-following navigation strategy truly challenges the brain. We have to keep all the landmark and intermediate directions in our head. It is the most detailed and therefore most reliable method, but it can be undone by routine memory lapses. With path integration, our cognitive memory is less burdened; it has to deal with only a few general instructions and the homing vector. Path integration works because it relies most fundamentally on our knowledge of our body's general direction of movement, and we always have access to these inputs. Nevertheless, people often choose to give route-following directions, in part because saying "Go straight that way!" just does not work in our complex, man-made surroundings.
G Road Map or Metaphor? On your next visit to Manhattan, you will rely on your memory to get around. Most likely you will use guidance, path integration and route following in various combinations. But how exactly do these constructs deliver concrete direction? Do we humans have, as an image of the real world, a kind of road map in our heads – with symbols for cities, train stations and churches; thick lines for highways; narrow lines for local streets? Neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists do call the portion of our memory that controls navigation a "cognitive map." The map metaphor is obviously seductive: maps are the easiest way to present geographic information for convenient visual inspection. In many cultures, maps were developed before writing, and today they are used in almost every society. It is even possible that maps derive from a universal way in which our spatial-memory networks are wired.
H Yet the notion of a literal map in our heads may be misleading; a growing body of research implies that the cognitive map is mostly a metaphor. It may be more like a hierarchical structure of relationships. To get back to Grand Central, you first envision the large scale – that is, you visualize the general direction of the station. Within that system, you then imagine the route to the last place you remember. After that, you observe your nearby surroundings to pick out a recognizable storefront or street corner that will send you toward that place. In this hierarchical, or nested, scheme, positions and distances are relative, in contrast with a road map, where the same information is shown in a geometrically precise scale.
Compliance or Noncompliance for Children
A Many Scientists believe that socialization takes a long process, while compliance is the outset of it. Accordingly, compliance for the education of children is the priority. Motivationally distinct forms of child compliance, mutually positive affect, and maternal control, observed in 3 control contexts in 103 dyads of mothers and their 26-41-month-old children, were examined as correlates of internalization, assessed using observations of children while alone with prohibited temptations and maternal ratings. One form of compliance (committed compliance), when the child appeared committed wholeheartedly to the maternal agenda and eager to endorse and accept it, was emphasized. Mother-child mutually positive affect was both a predictor and a concomitant of committed compliance. Children who shared positive effect with their mothers showed a high level of committed compliance and were also more internalized. Differences and similarities between children's compliance with requests and prohibitions ("Do" vs. "Don't" demand contexts) were also explored. Maternal "Dos" appeared more challenging to toddlers than the "Don'ts." Some individual coherence of behavior was also found across both demand contexts. The implication of committed compliance for emerging internalized regulators of conduct is discussed.
B A number of parents were not easy to be aware of the compliance, some even overlooked their children's noncompliance. Despite good education, these children did not follow the words from their parents on several occasion, especially boys in certain ages. Fortunately, this rate was acceptable, some parents could be patient with the noncompliance. Someone held that noncompliance is probably not a wrong thing. In order to determine the effects of different parental disciplinary techniques on young children's compliance and noncompliance, mothers were trained to observe emotional incidents involving their own toddler-aged children. Reports of disciplinary encounters were analyzed in terms of the types of discipline used (reasoning, verbal prohibition, physical coercion, love withdrawal, and combinations thereof) and children's responses to that discipline (compliance/ noncompliance and avoidance). The relation between compliance/ noncompliance and type of misdeed (harm to persons, harm to property, and lapses of self-control) was also analyzed. Results indicated that love withdrawal combined with other techniques was most effective in securing children's compliance and that its effectiveness was not a function of the type of technique with which it was combined. Avoidant responses and affective reunification with the parent were more likely to follow love withdrawal than any other technique. Physical coercion was somewhat less effective than love withdrawal, while reasoning and verbal prohibition were not at all effective except when both were combined with physical coercion.
C "Noncompliant Children sometimes prefer to say to directly as they were younger, they are easy to deal with the relationship with contemporaries. When they are growing up. During the period that children are getting elder, who may learn to use more advanced approaches for their noncompliance. They are more skillful to negotiate or give reasons for refusal rather than show their opposite idea to parents directly." Said Henry Porter, a scholar working in Psychology Institute of UK. He indicated that noncompliance means growth in some way, may have benefit for children. Many Experts held different viewpoints in recent years, they tried drilling compliance into children. His collaborator Wallace Friesen believed that Organizing a child's daily activities so that they occur in the same order each day as much as possible. This first strategy for defiant children is ultimately the most important. Developing a routine helps a child to know what to expect and increases the chances that he or she will comply with things such as chores, homework, and hygiene requests. When undesirable activities occur in the same order at optimal times during the day, they become habits that are not questioned but done without thought.
D Chances are that you have developed some type of routine for yourself in terms of showering, cleaning your house, or doing other types of work. You have an idea in your mind when you will do these things on a regular basis and this helps you to know what to expect. In fact, you have probably already been using most of these compliance strategies for yourself without realizing it. For children, without setting these expectations on a daily basis by making them part of a regular routine, they can become very upset. Just like adults, children think about what they plan to do that day and expect to be able to do what they want. So, when you come along and ask them to do something they weren't already planning to do that day, this can result in automatic refusals and other undesirable defiant behaviors. However, by using this compliance strategy with defiant children, these activities are done almost every day in the same general order and the child expects to already do them.
E Doctor Steven Walson addressed that organizing fun activities to occur after frequently refused activities. This strategy also works as a positive reinforcer when the child complies with your requests. By arranging your day so that things often refused to occur right before highly preferred activities, you are able to eliminate defiant behavior and motivate your child's behavior of doing the undesirable activity. This is not to be presented in a way that the preferred activity is only allowed if a defiant child does the non-preferred activity. However, you can word your request in a way so that your child assumes that you have to do the non-preferred activity before moving on to the next preferred activity. For example, you do not want to say something such as, "If you clean your room we can play a game." Instead of the word your request like this, "As soon as you are done cleaning your room we will be able to play that really fun game you wanted to play."
F Psychologist Paul Edith insisted praise is the best way to make children comply with. This is probably a common term you are used to hearing by now. If you praise your child's behavior, he or she will be more likely to do that behavior. So, it is essential to use praise when working with defiant children. It also provides your child with positive attention. However, it is important to know how to praise children in a way that encourages future automatic reinforcement for your child when doing a similar behavior.
