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Andie Passi

Professor Malcolm Campbell

English 1103

16 February 2015

The Effects of Fast Food Advertising on Obese Children

Introduction/Overview

I will be looking at the correlation between fast food advertisements and the increased

rate of childhood obesity. Over the past 30 years, childhood obesity has become a very concern-

ing issue, especially in the United States. The amount of fast food has only grown in this time.

Advertisements for these restaurants are seen in television commercials, radio ads, newspaper

ads, phone applications, and even on social media (ex. twitter ads, Facebook ads). The big pic-

ture is that within the last 30 years, childhood obesity has more than tripled. This has only caused

people to question why this is occurring. There is no doubt that there is a positive correlation be-

tween the number of fast food advertisements and the increase in obese children.

While short advertisements for fast food restaurants seem unrelated to the rise in child-

hood obesity, studies from the CDC have shown that since the rise in the amount of fast food ad-

vertisements to be made, obesity in America has drastically increased. According to the National

Institute of Health, “a ban on fast-food advertising to children would cut the US obesity rate by

as much as 18%.” According to apa.org, children between the age of 8-12 view about 21 ads per

day and about 7,609 ads per year. This is the age period where children experience a lot of men-

tal and physical growth. This is the time where children start to learn about healthy eating and

start eating foods based on their own choices. Having these advertisements only encourages un-

healthy eating habits since they are just starting to learn about food and proper food choices.

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To find my information, I have spent a lot of time on the internet. This topic has tons of

information and many reliable sites to support the information. I have used .gov websites and

blog sites of people who have first hand experience with the topic. For example, the CDC and

National Institute of Health. I have found many statistics and graphs on websites such as frac.org

showing how obesity has increased dramatically since the 1980’s. Also, I plan to talk to the li-

brarian that specializes in health to see if he/she has more information that is not found on the in-

ternet. My step-dad is also a doctor so I plan to go to him to see if he has anything else to add to

my research. I have previously talked to a person that is involved in the field named Kathleen

Hutson. She used to work with some of these children that suffer from obesity. I contacted her

and will be meeting with her again to discuss this topic. This process has definitely helped me

become more focused on the idea. Before, I did not really think that advertisements could have a

major effect on anything. After reading many factual-based ideas on the topic, I am now very

convinced that advertisements do play a major role on childhood obesity.

Other takes on the topic are common. People do not believe that strictly fast food adver-

tisements are the main culprit for the rise in childhood obesity. After reading some responses on

debate.org, the people who oppose the idea of banning fast food advertisements support their ar-

guments by saying that parents have control over what their children eat, everyone has their own

decisions to chose what they want to eat, and the government has no right to make peoples ’

choices for them. I found that most of the information disagreeing with the topic comes from

blogs and debates whereas information that supports the topic is more from government web-

sites/factual websites.

Initial Inquiry Question(s)

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Does the United States need to be concerned with the growing rate of obesity in Amer-

ica? Does fast food advertisement have a strong correlation with the growing rate of obesity? Are

fast food companies doing enough to combat the issue? How do other countries compare to the

United States? Do other countries have the sam amount of fast food advertising? How does it

compare/contrast?

My Interest in this Topic

I am interested in this topic because it is an issue I have seen going on for a long time and

yet very few steps have been made to solve the problem. In addition, my mom has spent a lot of

time working with kids to teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle. Health has always been an

important thing in my family. Seeing some of my family members transform from overweight to

now very fit is something that has boosted me to want to help others. Leading a healthy life style

is possible for anyone but there are definitely factors, such as fast food advertising, that I believe

are stoping people from being able to change their unhealthy lifestyles. Before conducting any

research, I knew little about this specific topic. In general, I have done a lot of research on child-

hood obesity in the past. I have written papers about implementing childhood obesity programs

to help children find healthy ways to live a balanced lifestyle rather than forcefully causing them

to lose the weight. I have read about the negative effects obesity has on the brain. Often times,

children with obesity have a chemical imbalance in their brains causing them to have moods that

are directly caused by this imbalance. I have also done additional research about crash dieting

and eating disorders that often result in the fact that children suffer from obesity.

Unfortunately, just about 300,000 people die from obesity every year. I hope to learn and

better understand more about how the fast food industries have affected the obesity rates. It inter-

ests me to understand why after these rates have risen so much that restaurants still continue to

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allow advertisements for food that is not healthy. I want to know more statistics about the trend

between then two topics and I would like to know if fast food advertising really is a leading role

for the increase of obesity in America.

Next Steps

My next steps with this are to use websites such as the Centers of Disease Control and

Prevention to learn more about the topic and to find more factual information about obesity. I

will use the library to speak with a librarian who may specialize in this and can help me learn

more about the topic. I also plan to meet with Kathleen Hutson, I woman I know who used to

work with obese children. I think it is also important for me to find reliable websites where peo-

ple comment on their opinions on the matter. I feel that hearing both sides of the argument can

help me understand both perspectives and lead me to be less biased in my paper.