Commercials can expose kids to violence

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Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction may have grabbed the most attention at the last Super Bowl, but a new study puts the spotlight on children’s exposure to violence in commercials aired during that and other major sporting events.

Researchers found that of the total commercial breaks for 50 top-rated sports events in the U.S., half contained at least one commercial with violent content or otherwise “unsafe behavior.”

Since many children watch sports on TV, this means that such commercials are a potential route of exposure to media violence that parents should know about, according to Dr. Robert F. Tamburro, the study’s lead author.

He and his colleagues assessed 1,185 commercials, and found that 6 percent depicted violence, while 14 percent portrayed behaviors considered risky, such as riding a bike without a helmet or driving without a seatbelt.

Tamburro acknowledged that some may consider that 6-percent figure low, but he added that the main message from the findings is that parents should be aware that their children can be exposed to violence in what’s seen as the innocuous realm of the sports commercial break.

Tamburro, who is now with the Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania, was at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis at the time of the study. He and his colleagues report the findings in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Concern over children’s exposure to media violence is nothing new, with many studies linking such exposure to the risk of aggressive behavior. Movies, TV programs and video games have been the prime focus of this research, but commercials “sort of sneak between the cracks,” Tamburro said.

He and his colleagues focused their study on commercials aired during major sports events, in part, because so many children watch sports—86 percent, by one estimate. They analyzed the content of commercials shown during the 50 most-watched sports events aired between September 2001 and September 2002—including the Super Bowl, World Series and Winter Olympics.

Of the commercials the researchers judged to be violent, 48 percent were ads for movies and 38 percent were for TV programs.

The Super Bowl had by far the highest proportion of violent commercials, at 28 percent. At the other end of the spectrum was the Masters Golf Tournament, during which, Tamburro noted, there were no commercials depicting violence, or alcohol.

The study has its limitations, Tamburro said, one of them being the potential for “reviewer bias,” since the researchers watched the commercials specifically looking for violence or unsafe behavior.

Still, he noted, the findings support guidelines already espoused by the American Academy of Pediatrics that, in general, parents should limit and supervise their children’s TV time.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, December 2004. 

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