Children of Hoarders on Leaving the Cluttered Nest

 Stacy Sodolak for The New York TimesHolly Sabiston said that her home in Austin, Tex., fluctuates between neat and “über neat.”

JESSIE SHOLL’S West Village apartment is a rent-stabilized fifth-floor walk-up, three small rooms and a sleeping loft where she and her husband, both writers, have lived for seven years. Perfect-storm conditions for clutter. But Ms. Sholl, a petite, pale-skinned woman of 42, keeps things tidy with routine “purges.” Even of objects she likes.

 

“I should get rid of this,” she said on a recent afternoon, pointing to a chicken sitting on top of a bookshelf, handmade by an artist out of recycled shower curtains. “It serves no purpose.”

Two minutes earlier she had been admiring its colorful plumes.

She laughed. “It’s a little pathological, I admit.”

If Ms. Sholl is overly zealous in her approach to housekeeping, one can understand why after reading her recently published memoir, “Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding.” The parent Ms. Sholl describes is a woman whose cluttered living room inexplicably contains five sewing machines and at least eight pairs of moldy cowboy boots. She is someone who buys too much and doesn’t throw anything away, even as the stuff piles up and impedes normal life — the textbook definition of a hoarder.

In dealing with her mother’s home in Minneapolis, Ms. Sholl has spent much of her life alternating between feeling shame about its squalid condition and attempting to rid it of the books, scraps of paper, empty food cartons and thrift-store tchotchkes littering every available surface.

When she learned that her mother had cancer, in 2006, Ms. Sholl flew out for one last-ditch cleanup attempt, an effort that inspired “Dirty Secret.” “The stove was piled feet-high with dirty pans,” Ms. Sholl said. “It gnawed at me that she was living that way.”

Many children of hoarders know the feeling. Even as scientists study the cognitive activity that accompanies the disorder and television shows like TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive” and A&E’s “Hoarders” have made it a mainstream issue, scant attention has been paid to how hoarding affects families of the afflicted, especially their children. Most are left to their own devices to make sense of growing up in homes where friends and relatives are unable to visit, with parents who seem to value inanimate objects more than the animate ones navigating the goat paths through the clutter.

Randy O. Frost, a psychology professor at Smith College, has been studying hoarders for two decades and is an author of “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things.” Children of hoarders, he noted, often display a tortured ambivalence toward their parents, perhaps because unlike spouses or friends of hoarders, they had little choice but to live amid the junk.

“They grew up in this difficult environment and naturally came to resent it,” Dr. Frost said. “But at the same time, these are your parents and you have to not only respect and love but take care of them. What happens when they get old?”

NOT surprisingly, there are a number of online support groups and blogs devoted to children of hoarders, including Hoarder’s Son and Behind the Door. The most popular, Children of Hoarders,?? maintains an online forum where members trade strategies for helping parents, discuss issues like “doorbell dread” (more on that later) and share stories. One account, posted by a woman named Tracy Schroeder, details in emotionally raw terms her mother’s death and the subsequent cleanup of the family home in Clovis, N.M., which was filled with magazines, craft supplies and dog feces.

“The COH Web site was my saving grace,” Ms. Schroeder, 42, said. “Nobody understands the weirdness of growing up this way unless they go through it.”

In high school, Ms. Schroeder said, she was a cheerleader and president of her class, but she lived in constant fear that “someone would see our house.” After her parents divorced, she strategically arranged visits with friends when she was spending weekends with her father. The college she attended was 20 minutes from her mother’s house, but she rarely visited, she said, because “I wouldn’t want to stay there, and that would cause fights.”

 

U.S. Seeks New Limits on Food Ads for Children

The federal government proposed sweeping new guidelines on Thursday that could push the food industry to overhaul how it advertises cereal, soda pop, snacks, restaurant meals and other foods to children.

Citing an epidemic of childhood obesity, regulators are taking aim at a range of tactics used to market foods high in sugar, fat or salt to children, including the use of cartoon characters like Toucan Sam, the brightly colored Froot Loops pitchman, who appears in television commercials and online games as well as on cereal boxes.

Regulators are asking food makers and restaurant companies to make a choice: make your products healthier or stop advertising them to youngsters.

“Toucan Sam can sell healthy food or junk food,” said Dale Kunkel, a communications professor at the University of Arizona who studies the marketing of children’s food. “This forces Toucan Sam to be associated with healthier products.”

The guidelines, released by the Federal Trade Commission, encompass a broad range of marketing efforts, including television and print ads, Web sites, online games that act as camouflaged advertisements, social media, product placements in movies, the use of movie characters in cross-promotions and fast-food children’s meals. The inclusion of digital media, such as product-based games, represents one of the government’s strongest efforts so far to address the extension of children’s advertising into the online world, which children’s health advocates say is a growing problem.

The guidelines are meant to be voluntary, but companies are likely to face heavy pressure to adopt them. Companies that choose to take part would have five to 10 years to bring their products and marketing into compliance.

“There’s clearly a demand hidden behind the velvet glove of the voluntary language,” said Dan Jaffe, an executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group that represents marketers like Kraft Foods and Campbell Soup.

By explicitly tying advertising to childhood obesity, the government is suggesting there is a darker side to cuddly figures like Cap’n Crunch, the Keebler elves, Ronald McDonald and the movie and television characters used to promote food. It also raises the question of whether they might ultimately share the fate of Joe Camel, the cartoon figure used to promote Camel cigarettes that was phased out amid allegations that it was meant to entice children to smoke.

“Our proposal really covers all forms of marketing to kids, and the product packaging and the images and themes on the cereal boxes have tremendous appeal to kids,” said Michelle K. Rusk, a lawyer with the trade commission. “The goal is to encourage children to eat more healthy foods because obesity is a huge health crisis.”

The F.T.C. said that in 2006, food companies spent nearly $2.3 billion to advertise to children.

The food industry immediately criticized the proposal, saying that it had already taken significant steps to improve recipes and change the way it advertises to children.

Kellogg, the company that makes Froot Loops, said in a statement that it would review the proposal and that it was committed to improving “the nutrition credentials” of its products. “We have very specific criteria, based on a broad review of scientific reports, that determine how and what products we market to children,” the company said. The company has already reduced sugar and added whole grains in many cereals.

Scott Faber, a vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group that represents food makers, said that ads for packaged foods on television shows aimed at children 2 to 11 had dropped significantly since 2004, and that the ads more often showed healthier types of foods. He said companies had also changed many recipes to reduce salt, sugar and fat and add healthful ingredients like whole grains. “The rate of reformulation is going to increase, not as a result of the principles that were announced today but because consumers are demanding changes in the marketplace,” Mr. Faber said.

Many food companies participate in an industry-led effort, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, to restrict some marketing activities. But each company that takes part is allowed to set its own nutritional criteria, which critics say undermine the program’s effectiveness.

Regulators said it was important for the entire industry to adhere to a uniform set of standards.

The guidelines were created at the request of Congress and written by the commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department and the Centers for Disease Control. Regulators said they would take comments and consider changes before submitting a final report to Congress.

The guidelines call for foods that are advertised to children to meet two basic requirements. They would have to include certain healthful ingredients, like whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, or low-fat milk. And they could not contain unhealthful amounts of sugar, saturated fat, trans fat and salt.

The sugar requirement would limit cereals to eight grams of added sugar a serving, far less than many popular cereals have today. Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch, for example, contain 12 grams of sugar a serving.

The salt restrictions are particularly stringent, and many packaged foods on the shelves today would have a hard time meeting them. In an initial phase-in period, the guidelines call for many foods to have no more than 210 milligrams of sodium a serving, while main dishes and meals, including both restaurant food and packaged food, could have no more than 450 milligrams. Today, a 15-ounce can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli has two servings, with 750 milligrams of sodium per serving. The sodium restrictions would get tougher over time.

The federal agencies acknowledged that a “large percentage of food products currently in the marketplace would not meet the principles.”

The guidelines would apply to both young children and teenagers. The industry has said it should have greater leeway for teenagers, and Ms. Rusk said the agencies would consider those arguments.

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, predicted that the guidelines would force many companies to accept great restrictions and improve recipes.

“With all the concern about childhood obesity, I think there’s a lot of pressure on companies to do the right thing and follow these standards,” she said.

Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a group that focuses on Internet marketing to children, said the F.T.C. proposal had broader implications. “The youth obesity issue has placed all digital marketing in the regulatory cross hairs,” Mr. Chester said.

Matt Richtel contributed reporting.

 

Bits: Children Fail to Recognize Online Ads, Study Says

“Hey kids, this is advertising.”

A thin banner with those words, or some variation of them, appears on various game sites that are aimed at children and sponsored by food companies like General Mills. The companies say such banners alert players that the games are a form of advertising, meant to encourage loyalty to cereals or junk food whose images often appear somewhere in the game.

But the banners and other notifications do not work, according to a study published in the spring edition of The Journal of Advertising. The paper finds that, despite the presence of the banners, children fail to recognize the games as advertising.

The banners “do not raise awareness of who put the game up or why they put the game up,” said one of the paper’s two authors, Susannah Stern, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of San Diego.

My Thursday story documents how food companies are seeking to reach children through “advergames.” Critics argue that such tactics blur the line between marketing and entertainment, while the companies contend that they have clearly labeled their sites as advertising.

Ms. Stern and a colleague looked at the reactions of 112 fourth-graders who played “Be a Popstar,” a game focused on the Honeycomb cereal brand that was available on Postopia, a site sponsored by Post Foods. The research found that the advertising notifications — which the study refers to as “ad breaks” — didn’t succeed in communicating the commercial nature of the site to most of the children.

Some children played a version of the game with ad labels, and some played a version with the labels removed. When the children were asked to identify the source of the game, there were no significant differences in the responses of the two groups. Thirty-four percent of all participants said the site had been created by a pop star or celebrity — the most common response. Some children even named particular stars, hypothesizing that the site was the product of, say, the Jonas Brothers. Only 10 percent correctly identified the source as the cereal maker or the Honeycomb brand.

In fact, researchers found that the children were more likely to believe that the site was trying to turn them into a pop star than that it was trying to make them want to eat Honeycomb cereal. (However, the research also showed that students who saw the ad labels were significantly less likely to believe that the site had star-making intentions.)

Even children who identified the cereal company or brand as the site’s sponsor tended not to recognize that it was intended to sell cereal. Only one participant picked up such “selling intent,” while 35 percent said the site was meant to be entertainment and 40 percent said it was intended to be informative.

Ms. Stern said the research suggested to her that companies or policy makers needed to consider some way to standardize notifications about advertising online so children understood what they were seeing.

 

Bits: Marketing to Children Online: What Do You Think?

Food companies try to reach children online with Web sites, virtual worlds and video games that may not, at first, appear to be advertising. Children who may think they are simply playing video games are in fact engaging with sophisticated commercials, a practice that is beginning to attract scrutiny from regulators. Matt Richtel has just written an article about the issues raised by these advertisements .

Where do you think food companies should draw the line when communicating with children online? Should there be more regulation in this area?

Post your thoughts in the comments below. If you have questions for Mr. Richtel, leave them here as well. He will respond to readers in a Bits post on Thursday.

 

Bits: McDonald's Makes Subtle Play for Children Online

  There are few references to food on McWorld, a virtual world created for McDonald’s.

McWorld, a Web site for children sponsored by McDonald’s, offers visitors the chance to create characters, decorate digital treehouses and go on a quest in a virtual world.

French fries, hamburgers and apple pies are nowhere to be seen.

This is the latest in online marketing, where the hope is that a site’s visitor will naturally associate the brand with a pleasurable activity. It is a type of advertising that has less in common with a 30-second television spot than with a product placement in a movie.

It is also a glimpse of the future, said Mark Smale, a senior vice president with Creata, the Australian company that created the site for McDonald’s. Mr. Smale said in an interview that companies are realizing that, when going online, the best strategy is to forgo immediate sales in order to build lasting emotional relationships with children. In that sense, McWorld is a more sophisticated version of the sites that Matt Richtel discusses in an article about the online marketing of food to children.

“It’s not overtly aimed at trying to sell product,” Mr. Smale said. “If it is, the people you’re trying to reach won’t be interested, they won’t be engaged.”

This approach, known as engagement-based marketing, has become an important tool for companies marketing to children. Mr. Smale’s clients also include Kellogg’s, Nestle, and Coca-Cola. At an industry conference in New York in February, about 50 people gathered to hear Mr. Smale talk about Creata’s approach.

Critics see such marketing as an unfair way to manipulate children who may not realize what is going on. And there are parts of McWorld and other food sites that encourage purchases. McWorld prompts children to enter codes from Happy Meal boxes to unlock things like special gear for their online avatars.

Kathryn Montgomery, a communications professor at American University who studies marketing to youth, said it would be more honest if McWorld did feature McDonald’s food. At least then the company’s intentions would be clear.

Modern marketing, she said, “is about kids playing with the brand, making friends with the brand, interacting with the brand and communicating with friends in the branding environment.” But in the end, she said, “it’s all about pushing the product.”

McDonald’s dismisses concerns that children cannot distinguish between entertainment and marketing online. Heather Oldani, a company spokeswoman, said McDonald’s had more than 50 years of experience in communicating with young consumers, and that it followed its own guidelines and those of the industry about what is age-appropriate.

“Our standards are high, both from an industry and self-regulatory perspective. And those standards are consistent across all of our communications, whether online or traditional advertising,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Mr. Smale said it would be inappropriate to have a Web site whose sole purpose was to sell food to children. But he said that engaging them with games and other forms of entertainment was different, and entirely acceptable.

Most restrictions imposed on Web sites aimed at children center on privacy. Players on McWorld are anonymous so the site complies with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. But there are no regulations when it comes to pitching products to children under the guise of entertainment, as there are on television.

The limiting factor on how hard to push sales online is whether companies believe they will drive children away, Mr. Smale said. Television viewers learn to tune out commercials during their favorite shows, a strategy that does not work as well when the commercials are embedded into the entertainment itself.

Branded Web sites work for food companies because it is “getting them out of the position of interrupting the fun,” Mr. Smale said. ” They’re part of the fun.”

 

Children 'growing up too quickly'

11 April 2011 Last updated at 05:51 ET  Padded bras and other adult clothing aimed at young girls is a concern for some parents Almost nine out of every 10 UK parents say children are having to grow up too early, with nearly half unhappy with pre-watershed TV, a survey suggests.

The research is part of a government-commissioned review into the sexualisation of children, conducted by Mothers' Union head Reg Bailey.

Most parents said music videos and celebrity were encouraging children to act older than they were.

Mr Bailey is due to publish a full report in May.

Of the 1,025 parents of five- to 16-year-olds surveyed, 40% said they had seen things in public places, such as shop window displays and advertising hoardings, that they felt were inappropriate for children to see because of their sexual content.

And 41% of parents said they had seen programmes or adverts on television before 9pm that they felt were unsuitable for similar reasons.

'Prudish'

The review is also conducting focus groups, and Mr Bailey said emerging areas of concern included adult-style clothing aimed at young children, as well as toys and games they felt were inappropriate.

Parents were "struggling against the slow creep of an increasingly commercial and sexualised culture and behaviour, which they say prevents them from parenting the way they want", he said.

He said parents "had little faith in regulators or businesses taking their concerns seriously", but also were put off complaining be fears they would be seen as "prudish or out of touch".

The review is exploring whether the should be restrictions on retailers selling sexualised products aimed at children - such as "Porn star" T-shirts or padded bras.

A code of conduct on "age appropriate" marketing and a new watchdog are among plans being considered by the review.

Items that have been criticised include pencil cases and other products with the Playboy logo.