Thursday 26 April 2012

"Six-year-old children attracted to cigarette adverts"

The Metro rehashes some of the most outrageously fraudulent research ever:

Children as young as six are falling for cigarette adverts as tobacco companies use ‘colourful and slick’ packaging to entice them, according to a cancer charity. They were drawn to the packets ‘without having a full understanding of how deadly the product is’, Cancer Research UK said.

Youngsters aged six to 11 were asked to describe what appealed to them about brand packaging. "It makes you feel like you’re in a wonderland of happiness," said one. Other responses – which were filmed by the charity for an anti-smoking campaign – included: "The pictures actually look quite nice. Ice cubes and mint", "It reminds me of a Ferrari", "Is that the royal sign?" and "Yeah. Pink, pink, pink".


Ho hum.

I thought that cigarette and tobacco advertising had been banned years ago? In any event, like the vast majority of smokers, I have had children of my own, and I can faithully report that none of them ever has showed any interest in smoking in general or tobacco packaging/advertising in particular, apart from the obligatory second-hand anti-smoking lectures faithfully delivered by my little lass. Who also tries to lecture me that it is better to take the train than to drive a car because of global warming, but who is first to ask whether she can be driven to school by car when it's raining (it's a five or six minute walk).

Of my two adult children, one of them became a social smoker at the age of 18 or 19 and the other one genuinely does not like smoke or smoking (I'm sure he's tried it). For sure, four children is not a representative sample, but I suspect it's a lot more representative than CRUK's sample.

5 comments:

Old BE said...

At any rate, even if young children are drawn to the packaging what difference does it make? By the time they are old enough to smoke they aren't young enough to be wowed by the pretty patterns in the same way.

For one reason or another levels of smoking are collapsing. Why does the anti-smoking lobby have to keep pushing the boundaries?

Macheath said...

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall during the sessions...

When the Urchin was 7 or 8, he was taught by a fiercely evangelical Christian. One day, she put on some music and told the class to draw whatever images it inspired; while they did so, she wandered round the room offering vague suggestions.

Her suggestions - whether deliberate or subconscious - had an interesting effect; nearly every child in the class drew and labelled an image with Christian connotations - angels, churches, the Garden of Eden and so on.

According to the Urchin, she gave no explicit instructions but looked and sounded pleased with the children who picked religious subjects, which was probably enough to start the ball rolling (contrary as usual, he drew a wizard fighting a dragon).

The teacher took the outcome as some kind of supernatural endorsement for her inspirational example - I don't suppose she watches Derren Brown do this sort of thing on a regular basis.

Bayard said...

"Why does the anti-smoking lobby have to keep pushing the boundaries?"

Because otherwise they'd be out of a job.

James Higham said...

What I really dislike is the spurious nature of these studies and discoveries or whatever. They blunt the message that children are different to adults in a hail of ridicule. This one should be ridiculed but not the overall message which has been lost in it all.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, I don't think that children are very different to adults. I can remember being a child quite clearly and it didn't feel any different to how I feel now.