Childhood Obesity and Fast Food Marketing

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

trend on poor nutrition and sugar snacks. Deborah Crooks criticizes the sale of unhealthy snacks in schools, saying many of these snacks are "high in fat and sugar" (Crooks, qtd in "Sale of snack foods in schools may contribute to obesity in children"). Many of these snacks are dispensed from bright vending machines and packaged in wrappers containing popular cartoon or movie characters and even celebrity endorsers.
The unhealthful effects of snack- and fast-foods have thus given rise to campaigns to regulate the marketing of these food products. Critics charge that unhealthful fast-food and snack food items are often presented as attractive alternatives to more nutritious fare. The use of cartoon characters by companies such as MacDonalds and Burger King further reinforce these products in the minds of children. For many children, the clownish Ronald MacDonald serves as an attractive association, leading them to prefer fast-food items to more nutritious fare. This early ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

and other child-attention grabbers gloss over the important health risks associated with a fast-food based diet.

Arguments against regulation

Opponents of this measure, however, argue that marketing strategies are only one component of the rising obesity problem. There are many modern factors that are associated with the growing trend towards childhood obesity.
For example, in the same ACNielsen survey, the majority of the respondents laid the bulk of the blame squarely on the parents. Some 86 percent believed that parents should be ultimately held responsible for the nutritional needs of their children. An additional 9 percent of the respondents stated that the ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: