The use of food and beverage advertising in schools greatly impacts the purchasing behavior of youth. With the abundance of advertisements plastered around elementary, middle, and high schools, students believe that the foods and beverages advertised in their schools are what should be purchasing and consuming. Advertisements directed at children in schools are misleading. Children think it’s okay to eat these food and drink these beverages because they see the advertisements in a place of learning, a place where they believe whatever is taught to them is correct. During the Obama administration, food and beverage advertising was a controversial topic in regards to First Lady, Michelle Obama. Food and beverage promotion can be found almost everywhere on school grounds. Schools have food and beverage sponsors, like local restaurants and beverage companies that advertise in the lunchroom and even scoreboards in high schools (“Michelle”). According to a study completed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “93% of marketing in schools, or $149 million, is related to beverages, and many soda companies already have started to transition their sales and advertising in schools from sugary sodas and sports drinks to their own healthier products (“Michelle”). Most people encompass the common misconception that most food marketing in schools are done through the lunch program; rather, most of food and beverage marketing is completed through athletic booster
“Congress should ban advertising that preys upon children, it should stop subsidizing dead-end jobs, it should pass tougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power (Schlosser). People must wonder how is it that a fast food company has so much customers. Advertising is the answer. The power advertisers have to be able to influence so many people 's decisions and affect people’s lives especially the lives of young children is incredible. Advertisers know just who to target and they research how too. In Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation, Schlosser explains to the readers how advertisers use techniques to draw in customers. A technique used is the “cradle-to-grave” which focuses on children to make them lifelong consumers. Like many researcher, Schlosser, has found that advertising to children when they are younger makes them be loyal to the company, and a child 's “brand loyalty” may begin as early as the age of two (43). Fast food advertising reaches out and harms families everywhere. This is why it is crucial that the people to make changes in their lives and change the way fast food is affected us.
Obesity and being overweight are very common worldwide issues around the world, especially in the U.S. There are more than 3 million cases per year. By changing your lifestyle such as diet and exercise, losing weight can seem effortless. Desirable junk/fast food or even irresistible fast food commercials can tempt you to do the unthinkable. We are all victims of this advertising war. Quick-service restaurants (QSR) generate these advertisements in hope to attract more consumers or to increase their popularity rates around town. These commercials bombard our state of mind only to convince us to buy unhealthy food for worthless money. The increase in fast food commercials in the U.S. has led to an increase in both QSR revenues and the obesity rates. Regulating commercial frequencies will lead to a decline in the obesity rate. Our country has more than enough issues that frequently affect our population. Despite these alarming cautions, the food industries with their advertiser use every available media outlet to promote and sell their products. Pushing food and drinks high in sugar is unethical and unjust. We learn to
Commercials through television and radio aimed towards children are ethical because it helps build healthy ideals. Through commercials, children can see that doing certain things are good for you! They can see that it is what they should do. “Advertising and marketing techniques could encourage children to eat
Advertisements are everywhere. They are a major part of modern day society. Whether it be a television commercial, an internet banner, or a billboard, advertisements influence people of all ages, but they affect a certain age group much more than others. Children ranging from toddlers to teenagers are exposed to thousands upon thousands of advertisements each year. Some of these advertisements are damaging to children, while others are a positive influence. Advertisements can either be used as a tool or a weapon. Food advertisements and manipulation strategies are both positive and negative, and how companies use them decides whether or not marketing to children is ethical.
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The food industry has mastered the delicate art of trickery over many years and has been able to convince consumers to buy their products, thinking they are healthy, when in reality they are contributing immensely to the obesity epidemic in America. Food corporations have developed a marketing strategy where they target juvenile audiences with their products. The companies do this by having advertisements on children's television programs encouraging children to buy their processed, high-sugar food products. Companies get kids’ attention by including beloved children's figures with their commercials, thus piquing their interest. Children view their favorite characters on television programs and ask their parents or guardians to purchase the items for them and the parents, remaining blissfully unaware that they are relinquishing their child's health to mass food corporations, concede and buy the food, which causes their child to become unhealthy and eventually obese. Another way food companies market their products is by embedding their advertisements with words like “Cheap, easy, fast”, which appeals to low income families looking for a inexpensive meal, or families on the go that need to quickly get a bite to eat. Due to the fact that unhealthy fast food choices are often the easiest method for gaining a quick meal, more and more families are
Schools no longer cook meals, but rather reheat meals given to the school through the government. Sodexo representative Barbara Brown in one school says, “Part of our position is that we’re hoping that through nutrition education, the students will learn to make the right food choice,” yet she represents schools that give snack bars, Gatorade, and pizza as school lunches (Spurlock). McDonald’s especially caters towards young children. According to Spurlock’s Supersize Me, a study showed that children predisposed to the good feelings of cigarettes, without knowing what they are, have a higher tendency to smoke by the time they are of legal age. This theory can be applied to McDonald’s; children raised with McDonald’s Playplace, Happy Meals, kid’s toys, and french fries are more likely to grow up to go to McDonald’s more frequently than those who do not (Spurlock). McDonald’s catering to children is a good business move for them because it appeals to the parents that they care, and at the same time expose the children to their food, thus raising business and potential customers in the long run. “The most heavily advertised foods are consumed the most,” (Spurlock). In 2001, McDonald’s spent 1.2 billion dollars on direct advertisements. The children who have dinner in front of the television are raised by the advertisements and cartoons featuring
Fast-food industries may try to “target children in their ads”, but it ultimately comes down to the adults-the parents- choosing to dine at these places and pork up their kids on the high-sugar sodas, salty French fries, and greasy burgers. If they would just take the time to look out the window, they would see the healthy alternatives to fast-food, and how the alternatives are literally right in front of
Many schools nowadays turn off their vending machines during the school day to prevent students from eating fattening foods. In California and Hawaii, state legislators are very close to passing a law that would ban any drinks excluding milk, water or juice from being sold in elementary schools, and reduce the hours older students can use the vending machines. Michelle Obama and the Obama Administration have asked Congress to improve children's nutrition by getting rid of school vending machines that provide students with sugary snacks and drinks. The problem with this is school’s are making an extravagant amount of money off feeding their students with artificial flavoring and
Throughout these last few decades, corporations have been entering schools and creating a pressure for the students to become life-long consumers for them. Companies do not really care for the education of the students; rather they care only about how they profit off of the children and young adults. Though there are different types of commercialism present in school campuses, a good percentage of the schools are receiving a majority of their sponsorships from soda and candy companies, which in turn is actually undermining the nutrition. Since there are a grand amount of advertisements being hung around the schools, students are being discouraged from critically thinking about brands, messages, or even the topics companies are conveying. Essentially, the freedoms of students are slowly being taken away because they are being brain-washed into becoming consumers of the different corporations from such an early
The advertising of foods and beverages targeted at children in Canada is a major cost for concern and policy makers should be taking a critical look at it. Restricting the marketing of foods and beverages targeted at children is a cost efficient way of implementing a population base intervention to combat childhood obesity (Raine, Lobstein Landon, Kent, Pellerin, Caulfield, Finegood, Mongeau, Neary & Spence, 2013). The World Health Organization (WHO) and other International bodies such as the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) have set tough recommendations for countries to follow to restrict the advertising of food and beverages to children (Raine, Lobstein Landon, Kent, Pellerin, Caulfield, Finegood, Mongeau, Neary & Spence, 2013). These recommendations outline several empirical evidences which serve as the paradigm for policy makers to act on and protect children from being targeted by advertising companies. The empirical evidences suggest children lack the knack to cognitively understand the persuasive intent of advertising companies (Raine et al, 2013). Food advertising companies envision children as susceptible and therefore adopt means and ways to lure them into buying their wares. Popular cartoon and
Fast food advertisement agencies take advantage of the ignorance of children to scam them into wanting unhealthy meals. Each year, the fast food industry spends over $3 million of advertising targeted towards children. Half of television advertisement is used during children’s shows and with cartoons. Out of all the factors
There are some specific and real problems that advertising can cause upon children (William A. Ramsey). Fast-food restaurant advertising it’s influencing our children to be obese. Childhood obesity around the world is causing worries, especially detrimental as its effect carries on into parenthood. The ratio of children 's who are overweight has approximately tripled in the same period, reaching fourteen percent (Center for disease control
In today’s society, the food and beverage industry is faced with an ongoing ethical dilemma because they are far more concerned with making money than providing a good, safe, and healthy product for consumers. The biggest victims in this unethical marketing scheme are children. Children are the least informed and most influenced of all potential consumers (5). Although children usually don’t directly purchase these products themselves, their desires strongly influence their parent’s decision on what to buy and what the child will eat. Most products geared towards children are unhealthy, processed foods that are high in sugars and low in nutritional content (6). This has led to a rise in childhood
Food advertisements, if focused at the right people and in the right places, are a complete success. These features, some of which are commercials, seduce society into buying food that we necessarily do not need. Many advertisement companies, especially those about food, are directed to children because they know that if you grab the kids you have their parents. While brands are using fun cartoons like “Trix Rabbit” and “Toucan Sam” (Green, 2007, p. 49) supermarkets are taking these items and placing them right in front of the children, at their level, advertising the “Fun foods” (Elliot, 2008, p. 259-273). They do this so the kids will use their, “pester power” (Scholsser, n.d., p. 2) to get what they want. A series of studies have been performed on children and television advertisements. An article states, “These studies have generally linked children's television viewing to negative health effects” (Korr, 2008, p. 451). Amongst these negative effects is a higher level of childhood obesity (p. 451). Similarly, in another study performed by a group of researchers, kids were asked to explain the television commercials that they remembered the best. The answers given were then compared with their diets. Interestingly, the items those children remembered best, chips, sweets, and sodas were a huge part of what they ate (Hitching & Moynihan, 1998, p. 511-517). However, some authors argue that television producer’s, even though their