Food Influences On Food Choices

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Recommended: The effects of TV advertising on children

To eat or not to eat.
From the day we were born into this world, we have learned to seek food to help fuel our bodies. Deciding on what to eat is just one of the many choices we make every day, but what types of factors influence children in their food choices and preferences? This paper will analyze the prospect of food related advertisements and its influences on the food choices children make and the next steps we can take to approach this issue. Internet and television programming displaying food advertisements negatively affects children’s food choices, as it targets their psychological vulnerability, poor lifestyle and unhealthy food choices represented in advertisements have the ability to cause early onsets of chronic diseases and …show more content…

Additionally, many developmental psychological theories such as Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development explains that young children focus on how products look using animistic thinking. Children develop a mindset believing that imaginary characters can be fairly attracted to products that appeal to them in order to meet their instant needs of gratification. Children would then grasp on to this type of thinking and succumb to the advertisement trap, not realizing the number of confounding variables influencing their decisions on unhealthy food choices. Recent discussions from health professionals with concerns over food messages in advertisements has been a hot topic as it is one of the leading causes of unhealthy food consumption leading to onsets of chronic diseases. This is evident in an experiment from the National Institute of Health Journal: The Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behaviour. The experiment was conducted to analyze whether children between the ages of five and fourteen would consume more snacks while watching a cartoon after viewing food …show more content…

An individual’s ability to take control over their own healthy lifestyle decisions is an important determinant of health. Unhealthy diets contribute to high blood pressure in children, causing changes in the body associated with the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and obesity. (World Heart Federation) Additionally, many companies of convenient foods and junk foods strive to promote their products towards children. There has been a link with high caloric intakes with an increased risk of cancer. Chronic diseases occur much earlier in life with poor food choices and have the ability to persist throughout one’s life. Children can be quite susceptible to the influences of media, in the book Food marketing to Children and Youth, it was noted that children as young as two to three years of age can easily recognize familiar packages and characters on products such as foods, toys, and clothing. (qtd. in McGinnis 3:103). This fact is quite significant and worthy to reflect on as food accounts for more than half of the total requests made by children, including foods such as desserts, candy, cereal,

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