Marketing of Unhealthy Food to Children

Marketing of Unhealthy Food to Children, Research Paper

DeVry University, ENGL135 Advanced Composition

Marketing of Unhealthy Food to Children, Research Paper 2nd Draft

A third of the youth in America are obese or overweight. That third equals out to ~23 million children and teens, and the soda and fast food company’s are reaping the profits from that number. They are scoring big while our children are eating foods high in fat and salt and sucking down soda loaded with sugar. In addition, to the obesity problem, this diet is leading to larger numbers of diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancers and diabetes. How did the soda and fast food industries get the upper hand? They push toys and cartoon characters on kids during cartoons and children’s TV shows. Now the soda and fast food industries would say that it’s within their first amendment rights to advertise their products, but I do not think the first amendment was meant to protect businesses that profit from making our children sick. The advertisement of fast food and sugary drinks during children’s programming has a direct affect on the health of kids, but healthy eating can be improved with the elimination of these advertisements.

Problems

Over the past 30 years childhood obesity has more than tripled, and that is a staggering figure. Obesity is the result of a caloric imbalance, which means the body is expending too few calories for the amount of calories being consumed. Obese children are likely to be obese adults and because of this they are at a greater risk of disease later in life. Some of the diseases they could experience are cardiovascular disease, cancers and diabetes that can be related to a poor diet. To put this into perspective, a sample of this is of the “5 to 7 year olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease” (Ogden, C. 2012, June 7th. Health effects of childhood obesity, Center for Disease Control and...