Bibliography and Anecdote

Vikki Sloviter. . "So That's Why My Kid is Overweight. " Pediatrics for Parents  1 Jul 2008: 5. Health Module. ProQuest.  Community College of Baltimore County, Essex. 15 Mar. 2009 

This is an article that was found on Proquest; it is about advertising toward children and fast food. I found that this was a perfect fit for my topic and saw that it contained a lot of good information. The text it about how advertising is divided into two different age groups and that a majority of advertising seen by children is about food and restaurants.

This article is more geared toward advertising food to children in general rather than just fast food. In this article it is explained the facts from a study done at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at University of Illinois, Chicago. In the study, kids are broken into two different age groups since advertising is age specific: Children (age 2-11) and adolescents (age 12-17).  There are some very good facts given in this article with regard to advertising toward children. For example: it was found that 36.4% of the products advertised to children were food related (30% for food products, 2% for non-fast food restaurants, and 4.4% for fast food).  The article also gave similar numbers for adolescents: 26.3% of advertisement was food related; 18.3% for food products, 1.5% for non-fast food restaurants and 6.0% for fast food restaurants. I found in this article that it was not useful for me that there were two different categories. I felt that the “children” category was a lot more useful to this project and the topic that I chose for this project. One fact that was astonishing was that “all the food products advertised to 2-11 year olds, 97.8% were high in fat, sugar or sodium.”I think that this a key concept to talk about in advertising to children and that healthy choices are not being advertised enough. Finally I found that It was necessary and important that the article touch upon the point that these children are easily influenced by what they see and that they have the power to influence their parents’ spending habits.  Overall, I think that this is a useful article and presents a lot of good useful information that can be used in this particular project.

Karen Collins. . "Is Fast Food the Problem? " Au - Authm Action News  [Scottsdale, Ariz.] 1  Jan. 2008,27. Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW).  ProQuest Community College of Baltimore County, Essex.15 Mar. 2009 

This article was also found on proquest and the particular article is taken from a newspaper. This article talks about fast food and the choices that are present on the menu. The author argues that the choices on the menu have very high concentration of calories and that the serving size is also quite large.

            “Research links frequent eating at fast food restaurants to greater weight gain and an increased tendency to be overweight.” This is the main point that this article argues; fast food is usually high in calories and makes people unhealthy and gain weight. This article touches upon the fact that people who eat fast food regularly have a extremely high BMI and intake more calories then those who don’t eat fast food often. The article also states that fast food chains classify large servings as “medium”, and this adds to the impact of calories and diet onto our weight. In this article, there are a few facts given on different experiments that were done in the past, and shows the correlation between fast food consumption and weight gain. At the end, this article gives a few alternatives to fast food and suggests how you can keep away from this negative impact of fast food. Overall, I think that this article presents only a few good points that can be used in this project. The main point was repeated plenty of times which I thought was a down side to this article. Another negative about this article was that it did not have many statistics, rather a lot of broad statements and conclusion to different experiments.

 

Rouse, James "Fast Food Advertising to Children." Fast Food Advertising to Children. 6 Nov. 2008. EzineArticles.com. 15 Mar 2009 .

I found this article on-line and I thought it was a good article because it relates fast food and advertising to children. This article starts out by giving a few facts in the introduction and then explain the tricks that are used to market to children. One part that I fond interesting was that it mentions how internet is now used for fast food advertisement.

            In this article, it first explains that there is over 10 million spent on fast food advertisement to children annually. Most of these commercials are for high fat and high sugar food that are unhealthy for children.  It explains how certain times and shows are used to target children of certain age groups for products that best fulfill their wants. After this, the article speaks about “sneaky tactics” and how advertisers use different kinds of ads to make children scream and beg to their parents to get what they want. “This is all about providing for their children and the guilt that comes with not being available enough for their kids.” Then there was also a paragraph that I though was interesting as it was about advertisement on the internet. Here, it states that advertising on the internet is more cost efficient than television. It also states that marketers know how kids use the internet and love how they like to click on links (such as “click here” or “win this”) Another point made about the internet is that  marketers now use email addresses to advertise their products. Overall, I think that this is a very good article and presents some interesting points. Though this article doesn’t have many specific facts and statistics, it gives a good ides on how advertising is used. I especially like the part on internet advertising and I believe that this is sometimes overlooked by many people. Things like email and flashing link is a good way to capture the attention of kids and convince them to do or buy something.

Personal Anectode: 

As a young child in North America, I didn’t exactly know what advertising was but I knew what I wanted and I knew that my parents were the people who could get that to me. My first experience with fast food was when I saw a McDonalds play place and decided that I HAD to go there. Bright colors and a tall swirly structure was what first caught my eye. When we went inside, I saw that there were numerous colors and characters that made the place seem like paradise for a kid. Now, as a young adult I realize how I was manipulated by these chains, and that these mechanisms are used by many companies to influence children.  When I see my little sister watching television I now notice why I was so stuck on going to McDonalds as a child. There are many advertisements targeted toward child; “on average children view over 40,000 commercials a year most of which are for candies, cereals, toys, and fast food restaurants.” It is no surprise then that so many Americans are obese and overweight. When a company is able to hook a consumer as early as childhood, they can be sure that they have obtained a “regular customer”. Children today have more purchasing power because they are able to use different tactics to get what they want. From kicking and screaming to guilt; it seems like children influence the economy more that we think. “Fast food businesses will claim that this is to provide a more pleasant visit to their store for the parents but in reality it is baiting children to desire fast food.”