Experts have found “shocking” levels of violence in children’s television shows, including Peppa Pig.
A new study looking into violence featured in animated series and films found that more than eight moments of pain and brutality were inflicted across a selected range of entertainment aimed at children.
The characters appeared sympathetic to the victims of pain in just half of the incidents, with a lack of empathy recorded in several other instances..
Seventy nine per cent of the moments featured violent injury and the majority of these were inflicted on male characters.
Psychologists who carried out the study in Britain and Canada described their findings as “shocking”.
They also argued that such shows and films, which also included Toy Story 3, could give children a distorted view of violence.
Among the 16 titles to be studied were Disney film Frozen, Pixar’s Finding Dory and animated series The Octonauts.
One of the study’s researchers, Bath University’s Dr Abbie Jordan, said of the findings: “These programmes could do much more to help by modelling it in different ways and crucially by showing more empathy when characters experience pain.”
Earlier this year, Harley Bird, who has voiced Peppa Pig for the past 13 years, announced she was stepping down from the role.
Bird, who is now 18, has voiced the character since she was five years old, having appeared in 185 episodes of the series.
Another of the show’s voice actors, Amelia Bea Smith, appeared in Netflix show The Haunting of Bly Manor.
