Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Advertising as a predictor for causing childhood obesity
Effects of the popularity of fast food on kids
Effects of the popularity of fast food on kids
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Fast Food Industries Aim Towards Children Fast food industries are targeting children for more business. It wasn’t until I read the book Fast Food Nation that I started understanding how kids are the main targets for the fast food industry. This is a real big issue for the kids, but they don’t understand it because they are young and don’t know the possible consequences for the unhealthy food served by fast food restaurants. A lot of people would say the fast food industry is taking over the world, but what they don’t know is that kids are their main targets. Fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, Burger King, and etc, aim towards kids to be their biggest consumers because kids will always have a parent, guardian, babysitter, or anyone older than them buying them food. While the grown ups are buying their child some food, they will more than likely get something for themselves too while their there, so instead of one customer you now have two. As Anup Shah states in his 2010 global issues article, “Parents on the one hand have a hard time
The main effects that I have seen and read about is diabetes and obesity. I have read, I’ve heard, and I’ve watched on tv about obesity and how people are unhealthy and have health issues just from eating unhealthy foods and the main culprit is the fast food industry. As Dr Ananya Mandal states in her obesity and fast food article, “Studies have shown that over the past four decades, consumption of food eaten away from home has also risen alarmingly. It is well known that eating out may lead to excess calorie intake and increases the risk of obesity because of large portion sizes and increased energy density of foods”. Children are consuming these unhealthy meals, and their not knowing what could happen to them in a year, or ten years form now. They are young and clueless which is ok for them, but the companies should know better than to take advantage of
The New York Times bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is one of the most riveting books to come out about fast food restaurants to date (Schlosser, 2004). Fast food consumption has become a way of life for many in the United States as well as many other countries in the world. The author Eric Schlosser an investigative reporter whose impeccable researching and bold interviewing captures the true essence of the immense impact that fast food restaurants are having in America (2004). Beginning with McDonald’s, the first fast food restaurant, which opened on April 15, 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois to current trends of making fast food a global realization McDonald’s has paved the way for many fast food restaurants following the same basic ideal that is tasty foods served fast at a minimal cost (2011). Schlosser explains how fast food restaurants have gained substantial market share of the consumers; he also shows that by marketing to children and offering less unhealthful fare, that are purchased from mega-companies which are often camouflaged with added ingredients and cooked unhealthful ways, that these companies are indeed causing irreparable harm to our country (2004).
“Children's current levels of fast-food consumption probably are even higher because of an increase in the number of fast-food restaurants and in fast-food marketing since the late 1990s (Holguin),” stated Ludwig at CBS. Ludwig is right, and this is outside of schools. Most students eat breakfast and lunch during school hours.Therefore, these fast-foods are their main meals… unhealthy meals. Also, where is the money from that allows franchises such as McDonalds to be in high school cafeterias?
Fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society. Everywhere you turn you can see a fast food restaurant. An industry that modestly began with very few hot dog and hamburger vendors now has become a multi-international industry selling its products to paying customers. Fast food can be found anywhere imaginable. Fast food is now served at restaurants and drive-through, at stadiums, airports, schools all over the nation. Surprisingly fast food can even be found at hospital cafeterias. In the past, people in the United States used to eat healthier and prepared food with their families. Today, many young people prefer to eat fast food such as high fat hamburgers, French-fries, fried chicken, or pizza in fast
Obesity in the United States, which the media has labeled a national crisis, has also been connected to poverty rates. Big fast food industry’s target poor communities, and spend millions of dollars each year to create advertising that appeals to these specific areas. These industry’s also target naïve children when advertising because they know that eating habits developed in childhood are usually carried into adulthood. Children who are exposed to television advertisements for unhealthy food and who are not educated well enough on good nutrition will grow up and feed their families the same unhealthy foods they ate as kids. A big way fast food giants are able to make certain young people have access to unhealthy food is by strategically placing franchises in close proximity to schools. They will often place three times as many outlets within walking distance of schools than in areas where there are no schools nearby. The way fast food advertising is targeted towards children is very alarming considering how important good nutrition is for young people and how a child’s eating habits can affect their growth and
Based on the study from Chicago-based Research International USA found that more than half of the population eats fast food once a week and with a 20 percent eating fast food at least every other day. Most being males below middle age. Also more than half of the guests were with family members, 29 percent of these guests are with children under the age of 18. Fast foods chains are targeting kids and young adults by utilizing cartoon characters and celebrities to influence them into their products. They also build playgrounds in their restaurant to help draw kids into business and also provide toys with cartoon characters they can relate. Some chains have website which are geared for kids and allow them to play games and interact with their products. These tactics are to entice kids into their restaurants which are a contributing factor with higher rate of guests that are under 18.
However, when creating fast food restaurants, the industries were not thinking about the negative effects such as obesity. Other than obesity, other harmful effects exist as well. Fast food restaurants serve unhealthy products such as greasy foods and artificial meat that lead to dietary health issues in many adults and children. A recent study showed that “Young children who are fed processed, nutrient-poor foods are likely to become unhealthy teenagers, and eventually unhealthy adults. Now twenty-three percent of teens in the U.S. are pre-diabetic or diabetic, 22% have high or borderline high LDL cholesterol levels, and 14% have hypertension or prehypertension”
Crouse, Janice Shaw. "The Fast-Food Industry Intentionally Markets Unhealthy Food to Children." Fast Food. Ed. Tracy Brown Collins. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2009. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.
In chapter two of this book it describes the many ways fast food restaurants influence children to but their products. They also describe the many tactics that are used in order to keep children interested and coming back for more.
Focusing on the well being of the customers should be the main focus of any major company, especially fast food companies. By reducing the amount of unhealthy choices for children and replacing them with nutritional foods, the nation’s youth will benefit.
...product toward children promising those children toys and gifts and you can even find inside some of those fast food restaurants games that attract children. Because of what they are doing one in six children are obese, the parents must be blamed but still the fast food industries are the ones who are selling that product and marketing it toward those children.
Worcester Polytechnic Institution. "Fast Food Marketing to Children." Public Health Communication. (2007). http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-082107-231740/unrestricted/Appendix_1.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014).
One way that fast food effects obesity is by advertising their products to children (Miller). In her article Food Advertising Contributes to Obesity, Patti Miller explains that the fast food companies are targeting kids and teenagers by advertising on television. The fast food advertisements are promoting unhealthy products as acceptable food which influences children to choose those meals. The American Psychological Association, an organization focused on improving the lives of individuals, expressed that with the exposure of different fast food commercials, children request to purchase these unhealthy products and cause the parents to be influenced by these requests. This concludes the idea that once children are encouraged by the commercials, they opt to consume the fast food advertised on television. Today, fast food companies are even advertising through schools by offering pizzas and burgers as school lunches, which consequently becomes a daily meal for children and teenagers to consume (Wadden, Brownell,
Through Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation he examines the effects that fast food has impacted the world and the way it is affecting the people that are consuming it. As the fast food industry continues to grow throughout not only the United States but the whole world, marketing companies are always looking for ways to broaden the group of people that are interested in buying their product over another company’s. As a marketer for a fast food company it is essential to have a group of people that you can rely on to always buy the company’s product, to many fast food companies they found this group of people to be adolescents and children. Marketing groups specifically market their products to entice this group of people to lure them in. Food is an object that is needed for the survival of a human, but the type of food that humans chose to eat is also not always the best. Because fast food is so cheap and easily accessible just about everywhere you turn your head, many people resort to eating it even though it is very unhealthy. With these factors present, many adults have exposed their children to fast food at a young age, these parents do not always think about the long term effects of feeding their children fast food because they are so caught up in the moment of feeding their kids right then and there; they do not think about the health risks that can occur later as a result from eating fast food now.
There could also be children, or teens, whose parents simply don’t allow them to eat at a fast-food restaurant quite often. Unfortunately, according to the table below, McDonald’s seems to be the fast-food chain restaurant that is targeting the youth the most (see table 1). Nowadays, many parents tend to take their kids to a fast-food restaurant simply because it’s easier and faster to order food than it is to cook an entire meal (Murray). Not only is eating out, or at least taking out, efficient, but it’s also less stressful on the parents. Children tend to be very picky eaters, well most of them at least.
Children today are suffering from both verbal and physical abuse, but a form of child abuse that is being overlooked is feeding children fast food on a regular basis. The leading cause of obesity in America is bad nutrition, and part of the cause of bad nutrition is the fast food industry. People do not realize how bad fast food actually is for the body, it creates bad habits for children by allowing them to think putting poison in their body is okay. Continually feeding fast food to children is abuse because of the sugar intake, weight gain and mental problems the fast food brings.