Advertisements Increasing Childhood Obesity

Brienna Weibel

bw977911@ohio.edu

A lot of ethical decisions go into the production of advertisements today. An ad is looked at in several directions, and many times they are taken the wrong way. Although the creation of an is to attract attention to the company or product, a lot of the ads today are generating the wrong message, such as sex ads, food ads geared toward children and many more.

This past summer, I had to battle the trouble of babysitting a family who only allowed gluten free food and organic foods. While watching episodes on Nickelodeon all day, many commercials appeared on the television advertising the greatest snacks for kids.

Each time a commercial came on, the kids wanted to eat something that was bad for them, something high in sugar. This became a problem because they did have “grown-up” snacks in the pantry, but they were not allowed to touch those certain foods. Although the kids were eating healthier foods, advertisements in commercials today attract children, who see that the break from their TV show as the perfect time to eat an unhealthy snack!

Another problem that goes into food advertisements is the promotion from celebrities and athletes. Many of the athletes endorse poor food and energy drinks that lack nutrients kids need because they are very high in sugar. Very many people, especially the children watching these ads on TV, seem to not know about this. Many of these athletes with the most food endorsements are big time athletes, which is special to children who are sports fans and athletes themselves. 

Besides viewing many ads on television, we now have more areas to worry about, such as the Internet, social media sites and magazines. Today, children are exposed to many more ads and media in general than ever before. This is frightening seeing that children are exposed to 40,000 ads just on TV.

Something that I have noticed lately when out in public the use of iPhones, iPods and iPads by children instead of a Gameboy like in the past. This exposes kids to many more ads, because a lot of free apps have advertisements linked to the games. The Pandora station app also has advertisements after every couple of songs. Some of those ads are also aimed at food.

I think this is becoming an issue because childhood obesity is so high today. Unhealthy foods not only lead to childhood obesity but diseases such as diabetes. It will be interesting to see how the rate of childhood obesity increases if these advertisements continue.

I understand that an advertiser has a very hard job with this because there are a lot of ethical issues that go into advertisements. After reading the article about food advertisements geared toward children, I think that it is important to make a change sometime in the future.

I came across this video and think that it is very important for parents and also babysitters. It gives alternatives to stay away from the unhealthy food advertisements. Marketers and advertisers are trying to change their ways, but for now these are some other options that could help children stay away from bad foods.