It's just as easy to be numb to the barage of media messages we are hit with on the daily as it is to be critical and hyper-aware. Virtually every major motion picture is partially funded by corporations who insert their products onto the big screen for some not-so-subtle advertising via product placement, and magazines are stuffed with seemingly more full page ads than quality content. But there are limits, supposedly, to where certain companies, like those selling alcohol or tobacco, can place their copy. But um, well, not really. Recently, researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health, John Hopkins School of Public Health, and Virtual Media Resources published an article in the Journal of Adolescent Health that presents strong evidence that alcohol companies are purposely targeting youth through magazine advertising. 

Researchers set out to "investigate whethere alcoholic beverages popular among underage youths are more likely than those less popular among these youths to be advertised in magazines with high underage youth readerships." To do so, they broke down the alcohol advertising in 118 magazines distributed from 2002 to 2006, examing each for alcoholic beverages that were popular among youth versus booze that youth were less interested in.

But what do youth drink? Well, according to the study, they are not into scotch, gin, whiskey, or brandy, as these beverages were four times less likely to be advertised in magazines with high youth readership. The alcoholic beverages that were four times more likely to be advertised than the aforementioned were premium beer, low calorie beer, rum, vodka, and flavored alcohol drinks (like alcopops). And here's the kicker...As youth readership increased from 0 to 40% across magazines, the number of advertisements for these youth-preferred drinks jumped from 1.5 per magazine to 4.6 That's a considerable transgression. 

But do magazines that aren't specifically aimed at youth, but youth read anyways, like Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, or Maxim have a responsibility to deny advertisements and the money that comes with them from alcohol companies? You tell me, community. I'm willing to opine, however, that as the alcohol industry spends more than $4 billion per year on advertising and promotion, that their strategists could afford to have a conscious about where they are putting their efforts. But in reality, I don't expect them to. 

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