The bad effects of food and exercise advertising!

- How did they get started?

- How do they choose the people in the advertisement?

- How many people do the advertisments effect?

- What if there was no need for the advertisement? 

THESIS: The lack of exercise and excessive unhealthy eating are big contributions to teenage ovesity.

The bad affects of food and exercising advertising

          How many people does food advertising and exercise advertising really affect? This question was chosen because the interests in learning if people feel a certain way when teenagers see a Burger King advertisement or a weight loss show like Biggest Loser. To find the answer to that question research was done such as surveys and typed articles to find some pretty interesting stories about what other teens think is going on. This survey shows that when teens see exercise shows and advertising they aren’t motivated to work out and get healthy but when teens see food advertising they are motivated to eat more. The site “Fast-Food restaurant advertising on television and its influences on childhood obesity” they said “Childhood obesity around the world and particularly in the United States is an escalating problem that is especially detrimental as it affects carry on into adulthood” (Shin-Yi Chou, Inas Rashad, and Michael Grossman). Now you can see how the lack of exercise and excessive unhealthy eating are big contributions to teenage obesity.

          Does seeing an awesome McDonald’s commercial make teenager so hungry that it’s tempting to grab for a Big Mac? Well people were so interested in this question that they decided to do some work and figure out what food advertising makes teens feel like and what they think should change. What Shin-Yi Chou, Inas Rashad, and Michael Grossman found was that if they cancelled some fast food advertising then overweight adolescent’s ages 12-18 would reduce by 12%. Fast food advertising usually makes teens want to eat more fast food but yet when they see exercise advertizing with skinny, young actors teens are not motivated to start living a healthier lifestyle or to start working out.

          Why doesn’t seeing exercise commercials make teens want to live a healthy lifestyle? Shouldn’t seeing exercise commercials motivate us the same way fast food commercials do? Brock university researches found that “currently only 20% of weight loss program participants make the necessary lifestyle changes to maintain their weight loss.” In a survey of 42 high school freshman 52.63% said that seeing exercise advertising doesn’t make them want to start loosing weight and getting healthier. While 21.05% said they do and 26.32% said that they are sometimes motivated to get healthy. But if the same 42 high school freshmen are asked if seeing food commercials motivates them to eat 43.48% said yes, 17.39% said no, and 39.13% said sometimes. If more teens felt the need to be healthy and exercise ads were more intriguing there would be less of a problem with teenage and childhood obesity.

          Today there are so many people living an unhealthy lifestyle and we need to change our bad habits and start a new. Daily efforts to overcome obesity are a major struggle in the world today. The ultimate goal is to develop new resources to loose weight. There are multiple weight loss television shows which are there to help motivate people, which is a great effort to turn around teenage and childhood obesity. The media has a huge impact on everyone. They got to be such a great impact by pulling out famous celebrities for the big corporations to create commercials. Children and teenagers see fatty foods advertised through media, which draws them to eat more and eat less healthy foods.

          There are so many unhealthy food advertisements that play a huge part in having an unhealthy diet which leads to obesity. In times now having a bad diet starts at a younger age and it will continue getting worse until we do something to stop it. The United States should limit unhealthy food advertisements and make exercise ads more accessible to kids. Media has such an impact on today’s society that kids and teens don’t think about what goes into the food they are consuming and they simply ignore it when it is made known. Adults have to be better role models for their children and teens. If adults would teach their kids how to eat right and how to exercise in a fun way it would be easier to get kids and teens to get up and get active. Adults should have more of an influence on what their teens eat to make a healthier generation.

Citations from Resources:

Ashton, David. "Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity." Web. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079287/>.

Grossman, Michael. "Fast-Food Restaurant Advertising on Television and Its Influence on Childhood Obesity." The National Bureau of Economic Research. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://www.nber.org/papers/w11879>.

University, Brock. "Brock Researchers Examine Motivation in Commercial Weight Loss Programs." Brock University. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://brocku.ca/bold-new-brock/news/2009-07-28>.