Fast Food Advertising Should Be Banned in Schools

Today a lot of children are targeted by many commercial companies. The kid customers have become a huge consumption group in a lot of commercial areas, especially fast food companies. These corporations try to infiltrate teen cultures and find out what appeals to teenager in order to market their products more successful. For instance, some fast food companies have aimed schoolchildren, and they even advertise in public schools. Fast food can obviously cause obesity, so the government and schools should not allow fast food companies to advertise in public schools.

Fast food companies have aimed schoolchildren because they have become a huge consumption group in their commercial areas. Fast food companies spend “over $33 billion per year only in the US” to advertise their products that could be classified as junk food. “The US food system is the second largest advertiser in the American economy (the first being the automotive industry) and is a leading buyer of television, newspaper, magazine, billboard, and radio advertisements.” These corporations spend these so much money on advertising because the balances they make are much more than they spend. These junk foods are children’s favorite, and they may get these foods a lot every day. “The heavy marketing directed towards youth, especially young children, appears to be driven largely by the desire to develop and build brand awareness/recognition, brand preference and brand loyalty. Marketers believe that brand preference begins before purchase behavior does.” In fact McDonald's, for many years, has focused its marketing strategy on kids in an effort to create “customers for life.” Most American children eat at McDonald’s at least once a month, some of them even eat them once a week. Fast food companies try to use advertising in order to encourage children to buy more their products, even though they know that their products may cause obesity, they still claim their foods are not unhealthy.

Today with the rise in obesity widely in the world, especially in the U.S., many doctors and scientists are beginning to question whether fast food can cause obesity. Actually, fast food has harmful effects for people’s health. “The regular consumption of junk food is the leading factor in obesity and excess weight.” Fast food causes obesity by increasing amount of saturated fats and calories, they are packed with high amount of sugars, carbohydrates, and oils. Even small amount fast food can increase calories intake considerably. Children are loyal consumers of fast food, this is the reason the obesity rates is increasing rapidly in teenagers. While consuming fast foods, children may get tempted to have extra cheese and soda either. These food and drinks increase the risk of obesity greatly. Without knowing all these disadvantages of fast food, children consume a lot of calories. However, people who consume fast foods are less likely to eat healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and milk. This change in eating habits can easily lead to obesity. On the other hand, children consume the new coming food by advertisements, and that is the reason billions of dollars are spent to advertise fast food every year. These advertisements subconsciously encourage children to indulge in high calorie foods. “Consumption of soft drinks containing sugar has been linked to weight gain and an increased risk for development of type 2 diabetes.” Not only the type 2 diabetes, “Studies have revealed that obese people have twice the rate of chronic health problems as people of normal weight. This includes a 100% greater chance of developing Type 2 diabetes, 50% increased likelihood of developing heart disease. Obese men are nearly 90% more likely to get colon cancer.” Therefore, the fast food advertising should be banned in public schools because it would decrease the consumption of fast food.

Public schools should not promote any particular product or service, and should not be used as a way of media for commercial activities because schools are sacred places for education. Schools play a significant role in providing food to children and in shaping children’s acquisition of life time dietary habits. Advertising in schools has become big business. “The explosion in children’s advertising occurred during the 1980.” (Schlossor, 42) In the other words, commercial activities in schools have become increasingly common over the past decade. Schools should provide a neutral and impartial environment to educate students in a manner that allow them to make correct choices, even for their future lives. Students have to realize that education is not only science, math and languages, it also includes how to make correct choices of daily life in the future. “It’s our responsibility to make it clear that schools are here to serve children, not commercial interests.” (Schlosser, 55) Schools are institutions of education, not just a tool of persuasion. Fast food companies should not exploit schools to advantage for their profits, it is an unethical and improper business practice.

The government should make any policies to limit advertising and commercial activity in public schools because it can protect students from the collection of personal information from the advertising. Government should regulate to protect schoolchildren from predatory companies like McDonald’s and Burger King, parents need to be vigilant about marketing advertising aimed at children. There is no adult that these commercial advertising would have continued, and these fast food companies cannot pledge to stop advertising in public schools. Those fast food companies try many ploys to attack children to buy their products, so both parents and children should pay more attention to avoid walking into these commercial traps. The government should play a role to stop fast food advertising and selling in schools, it’s government’s duty to protect children’s health.

In conclusion, fast food facts are numerous, and the negative effect of junk food on health and wellbeing is undeniable. Fast food diet is the major reason to cause diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Any commercial activities like advertising and selling fast food in schools are bad for these schoolchildren’s health. The government and schools should not allow fast food advertising in schools, it’s time to stop this activity.

Work cited page:

Eric Schlosser, “ ‘Your Trusted Friend’ Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All-American Meal.” Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.31-58. Book.

Mary Story, Simone French, “Food Advertising and Marketing Directed at Children and Adolescents in the US.” The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN USA. Web.