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How does advertising affect children's health
How does advertising affect children's health
How does advertising affect children's health
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Advertising has been around for many decades. It is used to promote company products and services. Advertising has negatively influenced the way of thinking for children and teenagers of this generation. It has affected their younger audiences diet, increased consumerism in children, and made changes in their attitude.
The use of advertisement has had a negative impact on a child's diet. Since the number of kids watching television have increased, they are more exposed to advertisement. They are eating more than usual, because they spend their time watching TV during breakfast, lunch, and supper. In a study done by Yasare Akta Sarnas, the researcher informed the readers that 90% of children watching TV were eating or drinking while watching television (Sarnas, 2006, p.140). The food they ate or drank were not health-friendly. Ads for food commercials are increasing and many companies are using the need for aesthetic sensation to attract their audience. They make their product look appealing and attractive. They use models to promote their product to attract men. Many companies are using a similar strategy to attract the younger audience. The items that are advertised the most are candy/chocolate, chips, milk products, and breakfast cereals (Sarnas, 2006, p.140). It is very rare to see a commercial on fruits, vegetables, and all the other important nutrients. The reason child obesity is increasing is due to the amount of bad advertisement they are exposed to. If they were exposed to advertisement that will benefit their health, the results would have been different. In the research, the researcher concluded that younger children paid more attention to advertisement than older children (Sarnas, 2006, p.142). Having a unhealthy di...
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...e a huge influence on the type of food young viewers are eating. They persuade them to spend money on toys/clothes. Unfortunately, children are very vulnerable when they are young. Therefore, these advertisements lead them to a negative behavioural change. In today’s world, parents should be paying a close attention to their kids, because the world is not safe. We are all victims of advertisement. It is around us at all times.
Works Cited
Arnas, Y. (2006). The effects of television food advertisement on children's food purchasing requests. Pediatrics International,48(2), 138-145.
Hulbert, A. (2004, Nov. 28). Tweens “R” us. The New York Times
Tilford, D. (2006). Facts about marketing to children. New American Dream. http://www.newdream.org/kids/facts.php. Fowles, Jib. “Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals.” (2013). Don't Touch That Dial Pop Culture And You.
One way that advertising is harmful is advertising poses health risks to youths. In a video titled, “The Myth of Choice: How Junk-Food Marketers Target Our Kids,” narrated by Anna Lappe, it talks about how advertisers target youths. In the video it states, “...only 16% of kids get balanced food.” Foods that are advertised the most,
In the article, Every Nook and Cranny: The Dangerous Spread of Commercialized Culture by Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor (Ackley 361). Since the early 90s is when Commercialism has bombarded the society. Ruskin and Schor provide examples why advertising has an effect on people’s health. Marketing related diseases afflicting people in the United States, and especially children, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and smoking-related illnesses. “Each day, about 2,000 U.S. children begin to smoke, and about one-third of them will die from tobacco-related illnesses” (Ackley 366). Children are inundated with advertising for high calorie junk food and fast food, and, predictably, 15 percent of U.S. children aged 6 to 19 are now overweight (Ackley 366). Commercialism promotes future negative effects and consumers don’t realize it.
Fowles, Jib. “Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals.” Eds Michael Petracca, Madeleine Sorapure. Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Pop Culture. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 54-72. Print.
Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spend hundreds of billions dollars each year world wide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume such harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities. It contains dissatisfaction that leads to over consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, American Psychological Association article, “Youth Oriented Advertising” reveals the facts upon the statics on consumers in the food industries. The relationship that encourages young children to adapt towards food marketing schemes, make them more vulnerable to other schemes, such as, advertising towards clothing, toys and cars. Article writer of “The relationship between cartoon trade character recognition and attitude toward product category in young children”, Richard Mizerski, discusses a sample that was given to children ages three to six years old, about how advertising incurs young children that are attracted too certain objects or products on the market.
(2012). Fast Food Advertising is linked to Rising Childhood and Teen Obesity. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Retrieved: April 24, 2014 from http://ic.galegroup.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&u=asuniv&currPage=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%...
...f television advertisements for junk food versus nutritious food on children's food attitudes and preferences. Social science & medicine, 65, (7), pp. 1311-1323.
According to “Burger Battles” from the Weekly Reader, obesity is defined as a person whose weight is 20 percent higher than recommended for their height (Burger Battles 1). When this condition begins to affect children lives, it is then known as childhood obesity. Within the United States of America, around 15 percent of children are considered to be obese (Holguin 3). Increasing tremendously, this outbreak has actually tripled in the amount of obese teen and doubled in children up to the age of thirteen (Burger Battles 2). One of the factors that is usually overlooked in the cause for obesity is the role of television. Not only does it reduce the amount of physical activity, the advertisements and commercials are targeting innocent viewers. In a survey completed by Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, the average child watches nearly 19 hours and 40 minutes of television a week (Ruskin 2). With that amount of time spent watching television, advertisements for fast food will be entering the children’s minds.
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,
Food advertising contributes to childhood obesity in many ways. One of them being that the food advertised is unhealthy. “The mechanism of effect of media exposure on obesity may also operate through the extensive advertising messages for unhealthy foods targeted at children.” (Agarwal, Dhanasekaran) The food advertising geared towards children makes them develop unhealthy eating habits, and choices. The advertisements are usually advertising unhealthy foods, never healthy ones. “When children watch television, they cannot escape food advertising. “Sugared snacks and drinks, cereal, and fast food advertisements respectively comprise approximately thirty-two percent, thirty-one percent, and nine percent of all advertisements marketed specifically to children.” (Termini, Roberto, Hostetter) Due to limited cognitive abilities, children view many food advertisements, and don’t really have the knowledge or capability to comprehend that the food being advertised is not healthy.
We see advertisements all around us. They are on television, in magazines, on the Internet, and plastered up on large billboards everywhere. Ads are nothing new. Many individuals have noticed them all of their lives and have just come to accept them. Advertisers use many subliminal techniques to get the advertisements to work on consumers. Many people don’t realize how effective ads really are. One example is an advertisement for High Definition Television from Samsung. It appears in an issue of Entertainment Weekly, a very popular magazine concerning movies, music, books, and other various media. The magazine would appeal to almost anyone, from a fifteen-year-old movie addict to a sixty-five-year-old soap opera lover. Therefore the ad for the Samsung television will interest a wide array of people. This ad contains many attracting features and uses its words cunningly in order to make its product sound much more exciting and much better than any television would ever be.
(2010). McClintock, Ann. A. & Co. “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising.” Eds. Chait, Jay. A.
Nowadays, advertising is a very big business. Very often is the major means of competing among firms. Furthermore, supporters of advertising claim that it brings specific benefits for consumers.
Across America in homes, schools, and businesses, sits advertisers' mass marketing tool, the television, usurping freedoms from children and their parents and changing American culture. Virtually an entire nation has surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling. Advertisers, within the constraints of the law, use their thirty-second commercials to target America's youth to be the decision-makers, convincing their parents to buy the advertised toys, foods, drinks, clothes, and other products. Inherent in this targeting, especially of the very young, are the advertisers; fostering the youth's loyalty to brands, creating among the children a loss of individuality and self-sufficiency, denying them the ability to explore and create but instead often encouraging poor health habits. The children demanding advertiser's products are influencing economic hardships in many families today. These children, targeted by advertisers, are so vulnerable to trickery, are so mentally and emotionally unable to understand reality because they lack the cognitive reasoning skills needed to be skeptical of advertisements. Children spend thousands of hours captivated by various advertising tactics and do not understand their subtleties.
Advertising has influenced teenagers in a profound way. The influence of advertising has affected teenagers in a way they are persistently exposed to by means of television programs, articles in magazines, product endorsement ads, and through the internet. Although teenagers are excessively exposed, how they perceive and process advertisements ultimately determines how they are influenced. With that said, the perception towards advertisements can be amalgamated between reality and fantasy, which evidently has both negative and positive impacts. Advertisers strategically capitalize on what is trending in youth culture, which makes teenagers most pervasive to wanting to fit in.
This makes children’s interest trivial and superficial. For instance, most of children refuse to buy any cheap products. They prefer most famous shop such as H&M, Splash, and Matalan and other brands. This help them to think that the fashionable and people who buy from expensive brand are the best people. As well, it causes them also to communicate with these people only. Thus they will be arrogant and judge people from their forms. In addition, not all parents have the ability to buy from the expensive brand and they try to reduce their spending in order to give their kids they needs and wants. Moreover, several ads seen currently include harmful stunts that kids try to do them. Due to, do not aware and understand the dangerous of it. For example, the ads of Red Bull drink that give energy for people. The company of this drink advertised this drink by famous quote which is “Red bull gives you wings”. Also they are representing this quote in ads. The last bad influence that can considered as the most essential one, is that the advertising can effect self- esteem by makes them feel inferior which weakens the personality of the child. Thus , it causes the kids hate their parents. Due to, the parents do not satisfy their children in the brands they want, food or any other