Food, Kids and Advertising
The following activity guides examine advertising's effect on children's food choices and nutrition.
- Packaging Tricks: Introduce the ways in which packaging is designed to attract kids.
- Junk Food Jungle: A look at the nutritional value of foods advertised on TV.
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Make your own commercial
Bring in a home video camera and have the girls script and film their own TV commercials. Use the Advertising Strategies handout to explain some of the "tricks of the trade."
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Food for Thought
This handout explains how advertisers make food look so good. You can have fun demonstrating some of the "tricks of the trade" and then photographing your work. Invite a food photographer from your local newspaper to come and share some secrets about how to make food photographs tantalizing.
Cereal and Junk Food Advertising
Use the activities in this handout to teach your Brownies about the tricks advertisers use to market cereal and junk food.
Christmas Commercialism
This activity guide explores the relationship between Christmas and commercialism. Incorporate a discussion on these topics into a meeting where Brownies are making homemade Christmas presents to give to family and friends.
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Conduct a blind "Taste Test"
Have your girls conduct their own "Brand Name" face-off. Use popular foods such as soft drinks, potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate milk mixes or french fries. Be sure to include cheaper, generic brands along with assorted name brands.
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Buy Nothing Day
The idea behind International Buy Nothing Day is to make consumers examine their spending habits and to think about the effect of mass consumerism on the cultural and natural environment of the world. You could celebrate by spending the day visiting a pioneer village or a museum or making something from scratch that you would normally buy, i.e. a loaf of bread, a handmade scarf, etc.
Truth in Advertising:
Put It to the Test!
Using this handout, turn your Brownies into advertising detectives. Pick a commercial that makes a very specific claim and then put it to the test at your meeting.
The Anatomy of Cool
This activity guide encourages girls to re-evaluate their own definitions and perceptions of what "cool" means. Activities include creating a "Media Kid" which the Brownies can dress in the latest clothing and accessories.
Be a Tobacco Adbuster
Using the idea in this handout, have the Brownies create their own parody ads for international non-smoking day -- Weedless Wednesday -- which falls in January each year.
Putting "scientific" commercial claims to the test
Check out the unusual science fair project of two intrepid twelve year old girls who decided to investigate scientific claims made in television commercials.
