Mark Dolliver's Takes: A Parental Dim View

When a study examines parents’ feelings about kids’ exposure to unwelcome content in the media, the headlines typically focus on sex and violence. There’s another kind of content, though, that parents look askance at: advertising. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found more than two-thirds of parents at least somewhat concerned about the amount of advertising to which their kids are exposed while watching TV (see chart at right). Parents who voiced such concern were asked to cite the categories whose overdose of ads is most worrisome to them.