advertisment aimed at children should be banned

* Clarifications * Before we begin, I'd like to point out to both my opponent and the audience that THE RESOLUTION IS BACKWARDS. Con advocates in his opening round that advertising to children should be banned, meaning we should assume that he is actually *PRO* resolution and simply made a minor error when instigating this challenge. From this point forth, I will be arguing the *CON* position to the resolution. However, for clarity, I will refer to my opponent as "Con" simply because it'll be easier to keep track. Clearly the audience should respect the fact that my opponent intended to argue as PRO (which is obvious from his round), and if not, he would effectively be arguing against himself so I would have won anyway as he has the burden of proof. Nevertheless, I'm hoping we can all agree that I'm CON, my opponent is PRO, and get on with a great debate :) =========================================================================== Essentially my opponent has given us two reasons in favor of the resolution: 1. Children are manipulated by advertisement agencies that seek not to inform them but persuade them - and children are not mentally developed to make informed decisions. 2. Food marketing toward children has contributed to the obesity epidemic in America. I'll begin by pointing out that the obesity epidemic is not only prevalent in children but to people across the board. Various studies reveal that children with obese parents face the highest risk of being overweight [1]. It's also been noted that children spend less and less time outdoors [2] and nearly 8 hours a day -- not including sleep or school, obviously -- engaged in social or virtual media meaning they're getting less and less exercise. The point here is that various factors are contributing to the obesity epidemic, and advertising only plays a minor role. This becomes even more apparent when you realize that children typically do not have income, meaning no money to buy food or junk. In this way, it becomes mostly the *parents'* responsibility in choosing to buy their kids more healthy options and encourage them to lead more active lifestyles. Speaking of parents, the fact that they are largely responsible for (a) buying things for their children, (b) monitoring their time watching television and (c) teaching them about dealing with the real world - including avoiding marketing ploys - this resolution seemingly becomes obsolete. It's obvious that advertising companies are not acting outside the parameters of their rights, or violating any laws in choosing to advertise. Con says they aim to persuade and not inform people, but this can be said about advertising to *any* demographic - not just children. For instance when Wendy's advertises that they're now open late (to 12 am or later), do you think they're marketing to children? The entire commercial is meant to entice the audience using visual stimulants of certain colors (like red, green and yellow) which have been psychologically proven to stimulate appetite. Obviously the advertisement doesn't expect children to drive themselves to Wendy's at 1:00 in the morning. The point here is this: Companies have a right to advertise; that's how they market their products, grow, expand and profit. This keeps companies afloat creating a plethora of jobs (including the advertisers themselves) and overall benefiting the economy. While laws can always be amended, what they are doing is not immoral. We are not slaves to consumerism and neither are children. While it's true that children are far more easily dissuaded, most of the time they rely on their parents to get what they want. As such, the parents must take a more active role in both educating their children and making sure they don't become victims to marketing ploys. There is essentially no way to get around these "ploys" either; for instance the supermarket usually stacks healthy cereals higher on the shelf, and "kids cereal" lower because they will be in direct eye-sight of the child who will then request the purchase. This might seem manipulative, but almost all of our interaction and especially acts of consumerism are intended simply to persuade people to buy their products. The company doesn't care how or why; their main incentive is simply to profit, and that's not necessarily a bad thing (if they're being safe in the process and not directly harming others). Remember that this can be avoided by parental regulation of media intake and other lessons. Plus, ultimately one's parent has the control of whether or not to feed into the sensationalism. Thanks, Con, for starting this debate and good luck in the next round. [1] http://www.innovations-report.de... [2] http://www.heartland.org...