Advertising is designed to sell products. In the process, ads also sell aspirations and communicate concepts of acceptable behavior and gender roles. Just as today¹s kids use ads to navigate the vast sea of our consumer culture ‹ and in the process largely determine how billions of dollars are spent annually ‹ so do they readily consume the subtle messages sent by the thousands of ads they see each year. Advertising, with its daily repetition and high accessibility, is a truly powerful medium. The influence of advertising on children¹s development is hardly surprising. Social learning theory, developed by Stanford University psychologist Dr. Albert Bandura, suggests that children begin to learn personality and behavior patterns by observing and imitating their parents. Further research indicates that children are more likely to imitate same-sex role models ‹ boys choose to mirror their fathers, while girls look to their mothers ‹ and tend to remember more about same-sex examples. But research shows that kids also emulate the behavior of other attractive models, especially when the behavior is rewarded. And therein lies the media¹s unique power. Nowhere else is the heady combination of physical beauty and personal success portrayed as appealingly and persuasively. As children begin to form their gender identities, they take cues from the media, including advertisements, as to how boys and girls should behave. Media also show them how women and men relate to each other ‹ a lesson that is first played out on the school yard and in the classroom and, later, in the workplace and the family. From childhood to adolescence, stereotyped images of females and males in advertising are reinforced in the children¹s television and prime-time programs kids avidly watch. The result is a continuum of limiting messages that often tell girls and boys alike that female appearance is central, that boys can do and achieve things girls can¹t,...