For immediat use

Nov. 24, 1997 -- No. 881

N.C. Pediatric Society starts campaign against sexual exploitation of kids in ads

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- The North Carolina Pediatric Society announced today (Nov. 24) that it will begin a statewide publicity campaign to discourage companies from using advertising portraying children as sexual objects. It also asked state residents to avoid products advertised by such means and use their consumer power to support socially responsible corporations instead.

“We believe the public needs to be aware of advertisements appearing in mainstream magazines in which children are being portrayed as sexual targets or sexual objects,” said Dr. V. Denise Everett. “When these ads appear, people have a tendency to start accepting the situations that are portrayed as normal. What we end up getting is a blurring of the boundaries between children and adults and age-inappropriate sexualization that not only can harm children, but also society as a whole.”

Everett is a pediatrician who directs the child sexual abuse team at Wake Medical Center and chairs the society's Committee on Child Abuse & Neglect and its Subcommittee on the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Advertising.

Other subcommittee members are Drs. Linnea Smith, a Chapel Hill psychiatrist; Marcia Herman-Giddens, adjunct professor of maternal and child health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health and medical director of the N.C. Child Fatality Prevention Team; and Laura T. Gutman, associate professor of pediatrics at Duke University. Smith is married to retired University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill basketball coach Dean Smith, who supports the effort.

The group is calling the campaign “Let Kids Be Kids: Taking a Stand Against the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Advertising.”

“Our chief goal is to increase awareness of this problem throughout the state,” Everett said. The North Carolina campaign has spurred a national effort supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, she said. The American Medical Association also has endorsed advertising campaigns that present youth in positive settings not relying on sexual themes.

“The New York Times last year criticized designer Calvin Klein for his advertising methods which make children appear sexually desirable and could turn children into victims,” she said. “Photographs of children wearing provocative clothing, appearing in suggestive poses, very young children overly made-up, wearing partially unbuttoned or unzipped pants or tops and touching private body parts are among examples. Another would be adult models acting sexually desirable while made to look like children.”

The society has produced brochures describing the problem and has begun distribution of the first printing of 100,000 to pediatricians across North Carolina for parents of their patients, she said. It also has produced a videotape and other campaign promotional materials as teaching tools for judges, lawyers, social workers, health-care providers and others.

“We encourage people either to write or call advertisers using these types of ads to say they are unacceptable, and we encourage them to support those who use healthy, non-sexual, age-appropriate ads,” Everett said. “When children see inappropriate material, parents need to sit down with them and discuss what messages and misinformation could be inferred from the ads.”

Smith said she and her colleagues believe the campaign is needed to increase public awareness and concern. The advertising in question is similar to child pornography, but perceived as more legitimate because it appears in mainstream media.

“Its impact is more insidious, and we are all desensitized,” Smith said. “Because the ads are in magazines and public places accessible to juvenile viewers, it is impossible to avoid them completely.

“One television ad series, for example, had a male voice talking provocatively and seductively in cheap basement or rec-room surroundings to young female and male models, who were either minors or chosen because they looked like minors,” she said. “The controversy such advertising creates becomes free advertising for irresponsible corporations and increases name recognition of their products. This is intentional.”

Too little research has been done on possible links between sexually suggestive advertising involving children and child sexual abuse, both Everett and Smith said. Child sexual abuse cases have increased significantly in recent years, which may be due to increased incidence and more reporting through heightened awareness.

FGI, Inc. of Chapel Hill created the brochure, and PBM Graphics of Research Triangle Park printed it.

“This innovative and important collaborative effort demonstrates how the medical community can work with the advertising and business communities on important social issues,” Everett said.

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Note: Everett can be reached at (919) 250-7810, Smith at 968-8146 (fax), Gutman at 477-4324 and Herman-Giddens at 966-2253.

Contacts: David Williamson or Bret Johnson, (919) 962-8596 or 962-2091.