Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US QUALITATIVE article REVIEWS AND ANALYSES - Essay Example

Food Advertising and Marketing Directed At Children and Adolescents in the US Qualitative Article Reviews and Analyses of Institution] Introduction This article by Mary Story and French Simone discusses the issue of child- and adolescent-targeted adverting in the U.S. food and beverage industry. In the opinion of the authors, from the literatures and study findings they reviewed and analyzed prior to writing the article, it is apparent that children and adolescents is a key force in the food market (Story & French, 2004).

Consequently, this market segment has attracted quite a lot of advertising efforts from the industry’s players, who have spared on effort in inventing and implementing methods of reaching this market segment. Among those studied and listed as the main advertising channels by which food producers and marketers reach children and adolescents are products with brand logos, in-school marketing, product placements, kids clubs, television advertising, the Internet, toys and youth-targeted promotions (Story & French, 2004).

This paper analyzes and reviews the article ‘Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US written by Story, M., and French, S. in 2004 and published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity. Article Review and Analysis Epistemologically, the author of the article sets out to gather the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ knowledge on the use of various food advertising channels that the food industry in the U.S. uses to target children and adolescents.

Importantly, the author seeks to unearth how these channels influence children’s an adolescents’ food-buying and eating habits. The author thus seeks to ‘know that’ certain advertising channels are used to target children and adolescents in food advertising and ‘how’ these channels are used to influence this target group. As researchers, the authors compare the situation in the US with those of other countries such as Australia and European countries, thus emphasizing the need for more effective and efficient strategies and policies.

The other research objective of the authors, which sets them out as researchers, is their giving of strategies and policy recommendations on food advertising and marketing aimed at children and adolescents. Being professionals and experts in the fields directly related to the subject of the paper, the authors are quite relevant and concerned with the issues of children and adolescent eating habits and their consequences. Public health concerns of overweight, obesity, health, well being, and growth and development are the issues in which the authors are experts and interested.

However, the subjectivity has not prejudiced the article in anyway. Nonetheless, the authors list a number of policies and recommend several strategies for promoting and ensuring child and adolescent health and eating habits. The article seeks to answer the following questions; what are the various advertising channels used to target children and adolescents in the U.S. food industry? What is the nature of advertising in the U.S. food industry? What is the approximate annual budget of advertising in the U.S. food industry?

What are the marketing practices used in the industry? What are the influences of food advertising on adolescents’ and children's food preferences and eating behavior? What are the regulations of advertising to children in the U.S. and other countries? What is the way forward for the food advertising industry in the U.S? However, the questions are not presented directly. Instead, they are given in the form of subheadings of the article. To obtain answers to these questions, the authors relied on a systematic review of the available literatures on the subjects of their interests; print and online articles, books, and study findings and reports.

In this systematic review of literatures and studies, the authors had to frame the above research questions and their relations to the structure of the research design. Second, the authors had to identify the relevant works from which they would do the review and analysis. Third, they had to assess the quality of the selected studies with respect to question formulation, selection criterion, and the refined and quality assessment of the selected studies. Fourth, the authors had to summarize the evidences in the selected studies regarding their sources, effects, and heterogeneity through a meta-analysis.

Finally, the authors had to interpret the findings of the reviewed studies and literatures. Due to the nature of the research, data was collected from public and private libraries and online articles, journals, study findings, and online books. Regarding trust, only studies, books, journals, and articles by renowned and professional authors and organizations were reviewed. Since there were no direct human participants in the systematic literature review and analysis, there were little, if any ethical issues involved; the authors only had to reference and cite the used resources in-text.

The data collected from the sources was then placed under thorough scrutiny for relevance and reproducibility and compared with data from other sources under review. The research process was thus quite direct and easily understandable. Like in many other academic papers, the authors conclude by summarizing the paper, beginning with the background and the introduction of the article followed by re-listing the food advertising techniques used to target children and adolescents. The public health concerns of these techniques and the appropriate policies and strategies are finally mentioned.

The research is made trustworthy, reliable, and valid given that all the used materials are not only listed in the reference sections but are also appropriately cited inside the text, at points where ideas and statements are borrowed. Finally, the research shows the importance and effectiveness of systematic literature review and analysis in conducting sound scientific researches that may be used to implement recommended policies and strategies and to chart the way forward for future researches in various disciplines.

Reference Story, M., & French, S. (2004). “Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US.” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity, 13-17.