Nag tactics kids use --from Chew on This
I guess I hadn't realized that there were actual "nag" tactics that kids use--and more importantly that adults have studied this and use it for marketing kids.
Throughout the book "Chew on this", I guess I was surprised to find out that manipulation of our youth by the fast food industry. Had I stopped to think about it, sure, I guess it makes sense, but like with so much of our advertising culture, many of us just take for granted and accept what images/ideas we are being fed. Reading "Chew on this", not only disgusted me about what we are feeding our kids and ourselves, but disheartened me due to the commercial aspect of our society.
I copied a few passages that I wanted to remember from the book as a comment.
posted by Nat @ 7:15 PM
2 Comments:
Here are the nag tactics kids use and other comments I wanted to remember from the book.
Pg. 50
Kids have 7 different nags to get what they want. In his book Kids as Customers, James McNeal describes them:
1. A pleading nag is when a kid repeats the same words over and over again, like “Please? Please?” Or “Mom, Mom, Mom.”
2. a persistent nag s when a kid constantly asks for something using phrases like “I’m gonna ask just one more time.”
3. 3. Forceful nags are really pushy and may include mild threats like “well, then, I’ll go and ask dad.”
4. Demonstrative nags are the riskiest, sometimes leading kids to have an all-out tantrum in a public place-to hold their breath, cry and refuse to leave a store until thy get what they want.
5. Sugar-coated nags promise love in return for a purchase and may rely on sweet, adorable comments like “You’re the best dad in the world.
6. Threatening nags are the nastiest, with kids vowing to hate their parents forever or to run away from home if what they want isn’t immediately bought.
7. Pity nags claim that kids will be heartbroken or humiliated or teased by friends if a parent refuses to buy something.
The TV shows and commercials all seem to be preaching the same message: This is what you need to look like, this what you need to buy is what you need to think, in order to be happy, pretty, popular, cool.
Throughout the US, the menus in school cafeterias have come to resemble the menus at fast-food restaurants.
About 19,000 public schools-one in every five in the US, sell branded fast food in the cafeteria.
The chicken farmer provides the land, the fuel, the chicken houses, and the hard work. Most farmers must borrow money to build the houses, which cost about $150,000 each. A typical chicken farmer has even raising the birds for fifteen years, owns three chicken houses, still remains deeply in debt, and after expenses earns about $12,000 a year.
The chickens were being fed a grayish mixture of old pretzels and cookies covered with a layer of fat. Chicken feed is often made out of whatever can be bought inexpensively. Sometimes the leftover waste from cattle slaughterhouses is added to chicken feed. Some times the leftover meat, fat, blood, and bones from chicken slaughter houses are added to chicken feed, turning the birds into cannibals. The aim is to provide feed that will fatten chickens as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
More than a century ago, a California educator argued that every school in the US should have a garden. These gardens, he said, will teach children that “actions have consequences that private citizens should take care of public property, that labor has dignity, that nature is beautiful.
I defintely agree with your comment! When I read the book I found this more disturbing than the actual way of how they make fast food- it seemed more personal that kids are getting these messages before they know how to interpret them themselves.
I also was struck by what soda can do to a society too. The description of the schools in Alaska with tooth decay because of the pop was frustrating. It is all about business too- and not the students' health.
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