Why Junk Food Companies Should Be Banned

Fast food advertisements can be found around the world, on newspapers, television, and even online. Children, teenagers, and parents have seen marketing focused on fast food. While adults may think little about such blatant advertising tactics that are solely designed to attract new customers, how are kids affected? People across the United States worry about the ever increasing obesity rates amongst children in recent years. A common explanation is the spike in popularity of fast food. Most kids and teenagers have eaten fast food at least once in their lifetime. But why has fast food gotten increasingly popular recently? Fast food has always been known to be very unhealthy, but kids still consume it anyway. The culprit: fast food advertising. In modern times, the majority of kids living in the United States have access to the internet or television, where they are easy targets for advertising. To prevent the nation from growing up obese, fast food companies should end all ad campaigns targeted towards children and focus advertising strictly on adults. These advertisements cause kids to consume fast food more often, to eat an unhealthy diet, and to grow up in a culture dependent on fast food.

An issue that is hotly debated is, should kids play competitive sports or not. It’s clear that the overall people feel that competitive sports are good for kids. Competitive sports teaches kids life lessons, makes them more responsible and teaches them healthy habits. Millions of American children and teenagers are overweight. This obesity epidemic has made the early onset of health problems such as diabetes, are more common. Over forty millions of boys and girls were participating in organized competitive sports in 2008, and this will help bring down the obesity rate.

Children spend nearly $30 billion of their own money on junk food. Marion Nestle stated on https://www.nejm.org that, “The food companies make misleading claims and they spend massive amounts sponsoring scientist and major health organizations to influence their research and guidelines.” Yet, marketing’s recent tactics have gone way further to persuade children. Along with television advertisements, they have shifted to product placements in toys, games, educational materials, songs, movies, and much more. The IOM noted that “…by two years of age most children can recognize products in supermarkets and ask for them by name.” More children are becoming obese and diabetic before they’re old enough to make decisions about these

Children are targeted in these ads they try to draw their attention by making the ads fun, and by using cool phrases. Moss proposes and “He explained how he would deploy strategic storytelling in the ad campaign for his snack, using a key phrase that had been developed with much calculations:” Eat’ Em Like Junk Food’ (494).This proves that ads plays a role in promoting food that are unhealthy and is putting children 's health at risk for obesity. To sum it up, children are exposed to high amount of unhealthy food advertisements which affects young children health and food choices. Therefore, the government needs to intervene and stopping the advertisement of unhealthy eating and start advertising healthier foods.

"We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want more of it”(Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s). Coronary Artery Disease is a type of heart disease and the most common cause of heart attacks. Plaque from eating unhealthy foods, builds up in the arteries, the arteries harden and begin to become narrow and can cause chest pain and heart attacks. Fast food popularity is the amount of customers a fast food establishment has and retains. Popularity is important to fast food establishments because it’s what keeps the company going. The environment is affected by the fast food industry because of the amount of pollution and trash they produce on a daily basis. The fast food industry has a harmful affect on society.

Once people start to realize what fast food it doing to their kids and better themselves, there will be a positive change for the better. Many fast food industries try to make their foods more appealing to kids by introducing popular character to sway the younger audience. Instead major companies such as MacDonald’s should try to use those characters to promote healthier living and healthier foods, whilst advertising their brand at the same time. Major companies should understand that once people realize how unhealthy their foods are they would be loosing customers. By providing healthier alternative and promoting healthier lifestyles they will be able to keep their customer and be known for promoting a healthier lifestyle a the same

The government may not be the only responsible party for what is going on in America, Fast Food corporations have grown into a part of everyday life. Relentless advertising focused on children with the use cartoon characters and larger portions or extra sizes to entice people. Yves Engler, author of Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations, points out it’s not only fast food restaurants where unhealthy products are being consumed, but also soft drink companies with high calorie soda pop who are giving money to cash-strapped schools to advertise their product on school televisions. Meanwhile targeting young children who get their parents to buy their products. Engler proposes a solution regarding the increase in childhood obesity by first stating that vending machines should be removed from schools and the

This program specifically targets children’s sporting clubs to increase the availability of healthier food and drink and restrict the promotion of unhealthy food. It also provides nutrition sessions for parents, coaches,

This article is about how Tim Horton’s recent ball hockey sponsorship has offended many Canadians. The children displayed in the advertisement are “Rosy-cheeked children chas[ing] a ball around the snow-packed surface at Montreal's Fete des Neiges.” A Quebec anti-obesity group voiced that illegal advertising is involved and is causing children to live unhealthy lifestyles because of encouraging the consumption of fast food. The director of Coalition Poids says that she isn’t pleased because the advertisements are too aggressive. This organization

Schools have started to ban all sorts of fast food products such as sodas, chips and processed food, but in addition they should teach students the danger in consuming certain food. They should warn students of the effects those foods will have on their bodies in the long run. In “Don’t Blame the Eater” fitness expert David Zinczenko mentions that “fast food companies are marketing to children a product with proven health hazards and no warning labels” (464). This false advertisement is often full of color, with images of happiness and delicious looking burgers to convince children to want their products. Fast food industries are smart to target children, because most of the time they know nothing about responsibility or what is good or bad for them. Zinczenko argues in his essay that without warnings or information“we’ll see more sick, obese children and more angry, litigious parents” (464). In contrast, if kids were warned and informed about the dangers in consuming unhealthy food, the number of obese children, diseases and angry parents would

Fed Up presents a possible solution to help the obesity epidemic - Placing parameters on how big food companies market to children. Cartoon characters, bright colors, and toys are all ways to get children to buy a company's products. Kids consume these unhealthy products and are addicted at too young of an age to even know the foods are bad for them. Small groups of doctors and activists try to change this by regulating big food companies, but the results are always the

"Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it" (Josh Billings, 1865). A healthy lifestyle is dependent on the choices of an individual 's diet. Junk food will fulfill the desire of one for a short period of time. However, a healthy and maintained body will fulfill the need throughout one 's entire life. Therefore, is maintaining an unhealthy diet full of sugar and life-threatening junk the perceptive decision? As perceived, healthy food habits are not something that should be averted, thinking it is petty. In fact, it is a serious matter that destroys many lives and thoughtful actions must be conveyed immediately. Hence, it must be mandatory for YRDSB schools to ban junk food as it will reduce the high chances of obesity, cause students to stay concentrated during class and require students to stay active.

There is presently much controversy regarding the idea of unhealthy foods and how companies shamelessly market these products to children. Individuals in the food and beverage industry constantly promote the belief that they are actively involved in providing society with important information concerning what is healthy and what is not. Moreover, most promote their products as having no negative effects on individuals who consume them, as doing otherwise would surely reflect badly on their businesses. It is generally known that children are vulnerable because they have very little experience in filtering information and food companies take advantage of this by introducing diverse methods to promote their products even with the fact that it is likely for children to get sick as a consequence.

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

Thousands of advertisements on junk food, fast food, soft-drink, etc are shown on TV and heard over radio have indirectly lead to the grown of obesity and anorexia in teenagers. This is one of the critical global problem of today which is threatening our next generations for being unhealthy and being exposed to many serious diseases and sicknesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problem and anorexia.