Good Essay About Food Advertisements And How It Affects Childhood Obesity

The modern culture is often called the consumer culture. The manufactures and enterprises are aimed to produce large amounts of food. The policy of the modern food concerns about usage of technologies and chemical supplements. The culture plays the important role in selling and spreading mass-produced food. The advertisement is the element of the modern culture. Finally, the development of advertising has enabled the economists to become quite conscious of the ideal nature of consumer goods. The consumer gives the diversity to products that are technically so identical that frequently even the manufacturer cannot find any differences (Counihan and Van Esterik). So, modern food habits are influenced by advertising and mass culture. So, the modern culture influence people’s food habits through the advertising and the ideology.
It is possible to say that due to large advertisement company on food, children became a very easy target for such big companies that produce unhealthy food. With the help of images and visual effects, advertisements make children choose what to eat and what not to. According to National Advertising Review Council (NARC), food promotion is a factor to increasing rate to childhood obesity. (Foundation)
Childhood Obesity is a problem that worries doctors and scientists around the world. They conduct numerous studies in order to find a way out of this situation. Every year the number of overweight children significantly increases, which poses a threat to the younger generation. Obesity in children can develop at any time, but most often it falls on the peak of 5-7 years, and during puberty. In 2006, American doctors examined the threats and opportunities of marketing of food (food marketing) for children and youth. It was justified by compelling the conclusion that the marketing strongly influences children's preferences, wishes and consumption. There was presented strong evidence that TV advertising of food and drink directly contributes to obesity of children. Marketing channels provide uncontrollably impact on children. (Boero)
The stimulating childhood obesity was joined by sponsorship, gaming products, sales promotion, promotions using celebrities, brand mascots, symbols, popular among children, internet websites, packaging, email, phone, text messaging, charitable activities, and more. Recent studies have shown that the number of obese people in the U.S increasing every day - for the last 20 years, this issue have tripled for adolescents and doubled for children, and one of the factors that causing such issue is food advertisement. Unfortunately, nowadays one may rarely see an advertisement on healthy food, and statistics shows that healthy food only covers 1% of TV commercials. (Miller et al.)
Therefore, we can see that nowadays, that big percentage of people in the United States is obese, and the reason of that is false representation of the products with the help of food commercials and advertisements. Of course, it is possible to say that parents are also guilty for allowing their children eat and drink what they should not; however it is their responsibility to keep their children healthy.
Hence, one can come to the conclusion that with the help of such changes, the percentage of obese children in the country would greatly decrease. Food companies, in order to keep their profit, could begin produce healthy and fresh food. It is global issue and it should be solved altogether. Healthy eating would create strong community, and would impact all spheres of our lives, making them healthier and happier.

Work Cited

Counihan, Carole, and Penny Van Esterik. Food And Culture. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.
Miller, Sonia A. et al. 'Association Between Television Viewing And Poor Diet Quality In Young Children'. International Journal of Pediatric Obesity 3.3 (2008): 168-176. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Koplan, Jeffrey, Catharyn T Liverman, and Vivica I Kraak. Preventing Childhood Obesity. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005. Print.
Boero, Natalie. 'Obesity In The Media: Social Science Weighs In'. Critical Public Health 23.3 (2013): 371-380. Web.
Foundation, Advertising. 'Advertising To Children'. Aef.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.