Week 4: Does Advertising Have a Role in Making People Obese?

Advertising most definitely has a MAJOR role in making people obese. Be it children or full grown adults, the media and advertisements play a major role in what we think and what we choose to eat. 

This topic is very sensitive to me because I see myself as a very health conscious person. I care a great deal about nutrition and it often upsets me to see how advertisements try and reel consumers into buying products that are making them sick! Advertisements definitely push the envelope as far as making foods appear different than they truly are; This goes for nutritional value, look, taste, pretty much everything. 

The first example that same to mind was Dempster's new vegetable bread. This in reality, this bread has about 1/2 a serving of vegetables for 2 slices. In the commercial for this bread, it shows one slender model unhappy because she's eating a salad. It then shows another slender model come in eating a sandwich. The ad implies that eating their bread is just as beneficial to your health as eating a salad. Sure, there is some sort of benefit to eating bread that has 1/2 a serving of veggies in it, but only compared to normal bread. Food advertisements are constantly trying to push the limits and over glorify the healthiness of their food.

Children in particular are in a seriously dangerous place when it comes to food advertisements. 

"Research has found strong associations between increases in advertising for non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity. Most children under age 6 cannot distinguish between programming and advertising and children under age 8 do not understand the persuasive intent of advertising."- American Psychological Association

If children weren't enough, the fact remains that many people don't think too hard while watching advertisements. There are many people who are desperate to lose weight and the media uses this against them. Millions of ads try and make the consumer believe that they have the simply, quick, easy answer to weight loss, when in reality their products are over-exaggerated and over-glorified.

I make my food choices based on the following statement:

"If there is a commercial for it, don't eat it."

And I truly believe that with all of the sly, dishonest, envelope-pushing food commercials today, this is probably the best choice I could make for my health.