Superheroes & Junkfood!: Television food advertising for children in Italy

There is strong alarm against advertising power on children. Many studies affirm that especially television advertising have major responsibilities about consumerism and bad eating habits leading to overweight and obesity. Cheerful commercials, with colourful settings and memorable jingles, represent smiling and slim, and good-looking children affirming their love and appreciation for snacks and cereals, toys and videogames as right and amusing, and very suitable for children. The explorative and descriptive research by IULM University, Milan, tries to analyse in depth the characteristics of advertising and food advertising by scanning almost 7,000 commercials - of which more than 1,000 deal with food - broadcast from 9am to 11pm in 5 different channels in 3 different months (December 2011, January and February 2012) and tries to understand how food advertising does work: its distribution, its strategies, its target. What kind of product categories are dealt with, what kind of attitudes are emphasized, what are its promises and its orders. If it does act gently and responsibly with children or if it is incorrect and misleading. The final objective of the research is getting the most updated, complete and clear frame of this kind of communication to children aiming at fixing a kind of starting point which should serve to start teaching advertising to children, make parents and educators sensible to the power of this means and stress the importance of a general rise of consciousness to the characteristics and aims of advertising.