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Food advertising causing obesity
Food advertising causing obesity
Food advertising causing obesity
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To begin, due to federal regulations, Big Food cannot claim their products prevent or cure any disease in advertisements. Instead, Big Food advertises their products as contributors to increased health and wellness. These claims are legal to advertise as long as they are supported by science or data. This combination of science and marketing redefined the notion of healthy food to change consumers’ and the governmental perceptions of certain products. The results of the increase of “health-promoting foods” is billion of dollars in profit for Big Food and multiple generation of confused consumers. In order to understand how Big Food reaps the benefits of these “health-promoting foods,” one must first understand how they obtain positive judgements about their products health benefits. …show more content…
A recent example of this was a Frosted Mini-Wheats® advertisement in 2009. The ad was described as follows in an article:
THE classroom teacher had just lost her place in the lesson when a child in the back row piped up. “We were on the third paragraph of Page 57,” the boy volunteered, “and you were explaining that the stone structures made by ancient Romans were called aqueducts.” Why so attentive? The voiceover in the TV ad explained: “A clinical study showed kids who had a filling breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal improved their attentiveness by nearly 20 percent.”(Singer
This is an increasingly concerning factor in the growing national epidemic of obesity. Adverts often mask foods that are unhealthy by emphasising their positive nutritional features – such as dietary fibre and protein. While at the same time ignoring its negative features – including the high amounts of saturated fat and sugar content. In some cases, even products that mention any alleged health benefits are usually outweighed by the health risks associated with consuming the product, that they just fail to mention. In summary, big businesses are using recurring and manipulative persuasive techniques on vulnerable consumers to try to convey the false message of health and nutrition in products when they are in fact more harmful than helpful.
Companies nowadays are using different and strong methods in marketing their food products. The Companies are very competitive, and the results can affect the people. When we think about this job field, it is convincing that those producers should use cleverly ways to gain their own living. In the other side they shouldn’t use misleading ways that could harm the people. Food companies should be straightforward with every marketing method they use. People have the right to know what they are consuming and also to know the effects of these products on them, whether it is harmful, useful, or even neutral.
Journalist, David H. Freedman, and author of How Junk Food Can End Obesity, dedicates an article to address the situation regarding the wholesome food movement. In his writings, he points out that although this new phenomenon brags about healthier foods being made available, there are some faulty aspects within the cause. Many loyal fast-food customers are put off by the anouncement of healthier menu items, while health fanatics are raving about restaurants catering to their needs. There are two types of consumers in the world of food; both of which are blind to the opposing sides’ work ethics.
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
He begins his argument by commenting about kids suing McDonald’s for “making them fat” (Zinczenko 462). Zinczenko ponders the absurdity of this claim considering how food choices are based on personal responsibility. However, he then considers the overwhelming availability ratio of fast food to fresh food while sympathizing he was once obese himself (Zinczenko 462). Zinczenko uses the primary argument that fast food companies are deceiving consumers with misleading advertisement, hidden nutrition facts, and calorie risks. He believes companies are encouraging the public to eat their unhealthy foods by omitting alarming information and levying “good” deals. In consequence, fast food companies are increasing the chances of obesity and diabetes in consumers by stimulating poor eating
In this generation businesses use commercial to persuade different types of audiences to buy their product or to persuade them to help a certain caused. If you analyze commercial you can see how certain things play a major role in the success of a commercial. The ad I decide to analyze as an example is the commercial snickers used during the Super Bowl in 2010;”Betty White”-Snickers. This commercials starts off with guys playing a game of football with an elderly women know as Betty White. As Betty White tries to play football she is tackled to the ground. Her teammates refer to her as Mike when they come up to her to ask why she has been “playing like Betty White all day”. This helps inform the audience that Betty White is not actually playing but instead represent another teammate. As the guys keep arguing Mikes girlfriend calls her over and tells her to eat a snicker. Betty White takes the first bite and then suddenly a man appears in her place ready to finish the game. At the end of the commercial the statement "You're not you when you're hungry" is shown followed by the Snickers bar logo. What this commercial is trying to show is that hunger changes a person, and satisfying this hunger can change you back to your normal self. They use different types
...pened my eyes to the health risks of the food I consume. There is a lot of health risks associated with the foods on the shelves at the supermarket. A food product I ate as a child was Lunchables. At the time I just thought the food was good. Although, now that I am aware of what I put in my body I try to look at the ingredient and the food products I consume before I consume them. The book also informed me of the deceitfulness of people in order to make a profit. A prime example in Chapter eleven is the Kraft Company. The Kraft Company state they want to decrease the amounts of salt, sugar and fat in their products. On the other hand, Kraft creates new products with an increased amount of these ingredients. Many companies state that they try to fulfill the desires of consumers. This idea is wrong. The consumers study what our body craves and uses it against us.
Moss voices that “a line of the trays, appropriately called Maxed Out, was released that had as many as nine grams of saturated fat, or nearly an entire day’s recommended maximum for kids, with up to two-thirds of the max for sodium and 13 teaspoons of sugar (267). Now, with that being said, if consumers were aware of the health concerns provoked by these foods perhaps they would reconsider what they prioritize. If well informed, maybe they would make adjustments to their busy schedules to make their children’s lunches at home rather than to feed them convenient processed
Due to false advertising, I feel that certain food companies are being careless in trying to make people buy their products in order to make money in the quickest way possible. My only suggestions for this situation are either the companies to tell the truth about their products, or stop advertising completely. If the companies could spend more time researching the effects of their products, then they could make improvements to their foods or maybe find alternatives to the ingredients. That way people can make the right decisions in buying what is best for them and their children. Thank you for your time.
Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Zinczenko shares his personal story about how fast-food restaurants such as Taco Bell and McDonald’s led to a weight problem during his high-school years. He claims that the ease of accessibility and lack of healthy alternatives make it all too easy to fall into the cycle of unhealthy eating. Zinczenko also contends that the lack of nutrition labels on fast-food products leaves the consumer in the dark about what he or she is actually consuming. At the time Zinczenko wrote his article, fast-food restaurants were not willingly disclosing nutritional values of their products. Today this has changed. Fast-food companies, including McDonald’s, have put the full nutritional information of their products directly on the packaging and wrappers. All other fast-food establishments either post it on the menu board (Panera), offer easy access to pamphlets containing all nutritional information of their menu in store, or have it easily accessible online (Taco Bell, KFC). I am sure that this is a helpful step forward toward educating the public as to what they are consuming, but has this new knowledge to consumers had a dramatic change toward ending obesity? No. People have always known that eating a Big Mac and fries with the giant soft drinks that McDonald’s and other chains offer is not healthy; putting the nutritional labels on these items has done little to nothing to stop people from eating these high-calorie meals. This again leads back to the point that people as consumers need to be more accountable to themselves and stop blaming others for what they willingly choose to put in their
T., Kraak, V. I., 2005, p.153). The book will be used in the sections where food industry and advertising could change their marketing toward healthy choices to help reducing and preventing
Fast food restaurants such as Burger King and McDonald’s, create advertisements where it urges people to consume their product. For example Mcdonald’s created a product where you can get two items such as a mcdouble and a medium fries for three dollars. According to “The battle against fast food begins at home”, by Daniel Weintraub, it shows how companies are intriguing their customers. “ The center blames the problem on the increasing consumption of fast food and soft drinks, larger portion sizes in restaurants and the amount of available on school campuses”(1).For the most part, the Center for Public Health believes that fast food companies are the problem for health
United Kingdom. Committee of Advertising Practice. Committee of Advertising Practice. Accessed November 11, 2013. http://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/Non-broadcast-HTML/Section-3-Misleading-advertising.aspx.
The sole purpose of a company is to offer goods and services while making a profit. If people have a liking for food products with so many unhealthy items and are willing to buy them, the companies have no obligation to reduce the amount of added ingredients. The companies aren’t the ones forcing the public to overeat. However, these companies shouldn’t market their products to people who they can easily exploit like children and those who are penurious. Michael Moss, author of the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” interviews several people who worked for certain big brand companies and gives us an abundant amount of information on how the food companies make and market their food to “get us hooked”.