Advertising of High Calorie Foods and Childrens Health - Article Example

Advertising of High Calorie Foods and Children’s Health After adult obesity, childhood obesity is also becoming a growing problem. The increase in the prevalence of obesity among young children represents an alarming issue. Scientific evidence has shown that obesity is related with mortality from various diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension (Cole, 2006). With the emergence of portable technological gadgets like smart phones, laptops, and tablets, the amount of physical activity has also been greatly reduced. Now children prefer to stay inside their homes, watching television or playing on the computer, than going to play outdoors. This reduction in physical activity together with consumption of a high calorie diet has resulted in obesity among children. Obesity has, therefore, become a major public health issue. In his book chapter, Killgore (2010) has examined the human brain to study its functioning behind human desires of hunger. The study found out that human perception played a vital role in stimulating moods that trigger hunger and craving for high calorie food. Various sections of the brain are involved with different sensations, for example, perception of high calorie food consumption was found to be related with medial orbitofrontal and posterior insular cortex (Killgore, 2010). Advertising is one social and cultural discourse which has the ability to manipulate human perceptions. In fact, advertising often uses deceptive messaging in order to appeal to its target audiences which mainly include consumers (Shimp and Andrews, 2013). Advertising of high calorie, unhealthy foods is an example where consumer perceptions of such eatables are manipulated by masking the potentially harmful side of the product to generate sales. Since childhood obesity is a growing problem among children, laws should ban advertising of high calorie foods. The psychology of perception lends itself to deceptive advertising and marketing (Kimmel, 2013). Arguments regarding marketing have often proposed that it involves psychological manipulation of the human perception that alters the image of a product. This is also true for the advertising of unhealthy, high calorie foods that are often shown in a way that spurs a desire for hunger and initiates a craving for the food. Such attempts are aimed at deceiving the target consumers into overlooking the unhealthy side of products, such as deep fried food items, crisps, chocolates, sweets, nuts and other junk foods. Instead, consumers are lured by showing graphically stimulating images of ingredients and food preparation. Food advertisements often use individuals to act out canned human response to delicious food or aroma so as to stimulate consumers to picture the taste of the food product. It is evident that such advertisements solely focus on their sales by stimulating hunger among the viewing consumers thereby spurring them to buy these products. Being humans, consumers easily give in to these deceptive advertisements and buy these products which cause nothing but potential harm to children as well as adults by increasing their weights and pushing them towards obesity. The negative effects of high calorie foods are more apparent among young children who are most prone to desires of hunger and hence, more responsive to such deceptive advertisements. Advertising and promotion is a branch of marketing which specifically focuses on persuasive rhetoric by means of various communication media. The content of messages in advertising is designed carefully to meet their desired objectives, mainly purchase. Emotional appeals are among the most frequently used rhetoric in advertisements that communicate by engendering and generating negative or positive emotions (Kotler and Armstrong, 2013). The language of the content is especially crafted to hit the emotional center of the human brain thereby enhancing the argument or message to persuade consumers. In technical jargon, this is referred to as pathos where emotional appeals are used for persuasion and strengthening of an argument. Clearly companies advertising about unhealthy high calorie foods aim to stimulate the taste buds of the consumers generating emotions of hunger that could perhaps by satiated by buying say, a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate. These foods are greatly caloric and increase the weight drastically. Children like sweet and savory food items like nuggets, chips, crisps, puffs, nuts, and chocolates which is why they may ask their parents to buy them these foods. Often parents may also give in to children’s tantrums by buying them the food items. However, such high calorie foods especially deep fried foods have adverse effects on the body’s metabolism which upsets the internal body system of digestion. The result is a buildup of fat in the arms, legs, and other areas of the body in turn resulting in weight gain and obesity. The lack of a balanced diet is making children overweight. The inclusion of high calorie unhealthy foods is adding to the problem as children are moving towards obesity. Environmental factors have been identified to be among the various contributors to obesity (“What Causes Overweight and Obesity?”, 2012). In the United States, Americans are exposed to oversized meals at restaurants, burger bars, and movie theatres. Avoiding huge portions of food is impossible with huge ads displaying tantalizing images of food and cheeseburgers that are sure to tempt individuals, especially children. This has become a major issue as calorie consciousness has degraded from a society dominated by advertisements of unhealthy food and glorification of an unhealthy lifestyle. The risk of obesity is greatly increased by consumption of unhealthy foods. Obesity itself exposes the individual to various chronic diseases including heart diseases and hypertension. High calorie foods thicken the blood for which the heart muscles have to work harder to pump the blood around. Fat accumulation results and is associated with various social problems among children as well such as alienation and bullying. Obese children may be left out in school due to their weight and misalignment with other children. This may negatively impact their performance in school. Many parents are worried that their children may become targets of bullying as they develop social awkwardness due to their weight. Many children may face developmental and growth issues due to their obesity. However, the side effect on child health overweighs other impacts on social development. There are various factors that are collectively contributing towards obesity, especially among children. Changing demographics and advancements in technology has provided an environment that discourages activity and promotes sedentary lifestyles that involve little movement. Furthermore, the prevalence and pervasiveness of advertisements has made the phenomena part of our daily lives. So, advertisements regarding unhealthy foods cannot be avoided. Television, roads, malls, and other public places are riddled with advertisements regarding unhealthy foods that promote an unhealthy lifestyle while portraying it as essentially interesting. The issue has become so problematic that after adult obesity, childhood obesity is also growing at an alarming rate. The issue has expanded so much to become a public health issue which has to be dealt with immediately. Health care costs are too high already and eat away a wide portion of the GDP in healthcare bills. Government expenditure on health also represents a high amount. Considering the scope of the public health issue, law makers should think about banning advertisements that display a distorted or misleading image of high calorie foods. Most advertisements are deceptive in nature as classified by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (2014) in their guidelines. This calls for action through proper legislation that bans advertising of high calorie unhealthy foods that are harmful for a child’s health. Unless action is taken, the public health issue could extend to become uncontrollable and may surge the health care costs thereby burdening the government. Therefore, advertisements of high calorie foods should be banned through legislation to mitigate the risk of childhood obesity. References Cole, T. (2006). Childhood Obesity: Assessment and Prevalence. In N. Cameron, G. Norgan & G. Ellison,Childhood Obesity: Contemporary Issues (1st ed.). Boca Raton, FL: Taylor and Francis Group. Federal Trade Commission,. (2014). Division of Advertising Practices. Retrieved 9 August 2014, from http://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection/our-divisions/division-advertising-practices Killgore, W. (2010). Cortical and Limbic Response to Low- and High-Calorie Food. In L. Dube, A. Bechara, A. Dagher, A. Drewnowski, J. LeBel, P. James & R. Yada, Obesity Prevention: The Role of Brain and Society on Individual Behavior (1st ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Kimmel, A. (2013). Psychological foundations of marketing (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2013). Principles of marketing (15th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute,. (2012). What Causes Overweight and Obesity?. Retrieved 9 August 2014, from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/obe/causes.html Shimp, T., & Andrews, J. (2013). Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated marketing communications (1st ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western. Read More