Children’s animated TV shows and movies – including Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol and Frozen – could do more to educate kids about ‘everyday pain’, researchers say.
Experts from the University of Bath and the University of Calgary studied hours of footage from television and movies aimed at children for signs of pain.
They watched more than 50 hours of animated content from 10 family films released since 2009 and six popular children’s television programmes.
They found 454 painful incidents shown in the footage, with 79 per cent linked to violent pain or injury and just 20 per cent from everyday issues like bumping a knee.
The team say that TV and movie producers should do more to reflect pain as it is more often experienced in every day life and have characters show more empathy.
They watched more than 50 hours of animated content from 10 family films released since 2009 and six popular children’s television programmes.
For the study researchers watched Despicable Me 2, The Secret Life of Pets, Toy Story 3 and 4, Incredibles 2, Inside Out, Up, Zootopia, Frozen and Finding Dory.
They also analysed six popular children’s TV programmes; Sofia the First, Shimmer and Shine, Paw Patrol, Octonauts, Peppa Pig and Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood.
These programmes were chosen to represent either girl-focused, boy-focused or gender-neutral TV series based on the key characters featured.
The authors found that there was a general lack of empathy from other characters, with 75 per cent of painful instances seen by others, but those who witnessed it did not respond or were not empathetic in 41 per cent of those cases.
Facial expressions revealed that boy characters were more likely to experience severe pain compared to girl characters, the authors of the study said.
Children’s animated TV shows and movies – including Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol and Frozen – could do more to educate kids about ‘everyday pain’, researchers say
Dr Abbie Jordan, study co-author, said the way children experience, model, understand and manage pain has lasting consequences for them and society.
‘Pain, in particular chronic pain, can have hugely debilitating effects on the lives of children and young people right through into adulthood,’ Jordan explained
She said part of the challenge is how we talk about pain with children, and as a society in order to ensure there is a better understanding of its impact.
‘We know children spend increasing amounts of time watching these influential programmes and films and that what they depict feeds through to their understanding and awareness of an issue,’ Jordan said.
Researchers say understand how pain is shown in the media matters because what children watch on TV shapes and models their behaviours.
They want producers to use their influence to re-think how pain is portrayed in order to better equip young people to cope with common, everyday pain which they are more likely to experience but is often forgotten and misunderstood.
The picture presented by TV and movies aimed at kids is ‘not reflective of children’s common experiences’ and focused more on extreme and violent pain, they found.
‘Our assessment is that these programmes could do much more to help children understand pain by modelling it in different ways and crucially by showing more empathy when characters experience pain,’ she added.
They analysed six popular children’s TV programmes; Sofia the First, Shimmer and Shine, Paw Patrol, Octonauts, Peppa Pig (pictured) and Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood
‘That’s important for how children interact with others when one of them experiences pain, such as when a friend might fall over in the playground or when they go to the doctors for routine vaccinations.’
Dr Melanie Noel, associate professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Calgary, described the findings of the study as ‘shocking’.
‘It is undoubtable that the media is a powerful force in how children learn about the world,’ Dr Noel said, adding it is sending the wrong message to children.
‘The way pain is unrealistically portrayed is teaching young children that pain is not worthy of help or empathy from others, and that it will be experienced and responded to differently if you are a boy or a girl.
‘We have a responsibility to change these societal narratives about pain.’
A recent report published in the Lancet, written by researchers from the University of Bath, found children’s pain was often sidelined when the topic is highlighted.
The findings of that report suggest that much more needs to be done to help young people that are struggling by making pain matter across society.
The report suggests that change in paediatric services over the past 40 years in terms of pain recognition, diagnosis, assessment and management is slow.
The last major intervention in the field came in the 1980s when, remarkably, for the first time, it was recognised that babies experienced pain.
The report speculates that much of what we do (or fail to do) for children in pain today might come to be seen as unwise, unacceptable or unethical in the next 40 years.
Authors of the new study into children’s TV and film say the findings could be used to inform future productions to make pain more realistic.
This could include showing the sort of pain children experience regularly – such as bumping a knee or falling over – as well as having others show more empathy.
The findings of the new study into children’s TV and film were published in the journal Pain.