Cause of Children Obesity: Marketing of Unhealthy Foods Essay

â€Å"Daddy, there it is†¦ please stop,† my kids yell and scream from the back seat of the car as we pass by the signature golden arches of McDonalds. My children recognize the golden arches, the leprechaun on Lucky Charms cereal, and all the characters from Tinkerbell, to Dora to Scooby Doo on all the boxes of fruit snacks. Yet no one is screaming for a stick of cheese, an apple, or a banana at snack time. It’s amazing really, that foods loaded with extra calories, sugar, and fat have a colorful, fun friend attached to enhance their marketing and foods that are healthier like milk, cheese, bread and chicken do not. Everywhere you look from TV, billboards, to creative packaging unhealthy foods are being pushed to our young consumers in an irresistible manner. The US rate for childhood obesity and health issue is at an all-time high and yet we wonder why. The Marketing of unhealthy food to children, has led to the overwhelming health issues in the lives of our present generations. The creative presentation of sugar loaded, calorie laden and salt ridden snacks makes it nearly impossible for parents to offer healthier snacks to their children or to fight obesity with healthier living, therefore leading to the health issues. The advertising of unhealthy foods makes it difficult for parents to encourage healthy eating to children and leads to the obesity of the youth. Unhealthy fast food is posted all over the place and it is designed to grab the attention of the consumer on all levels. In the majority of cases it’s cheap, fast, and convenient and the packaging and presentation makes it almost impossible to say no. There are very few advertisements that focus on healthy choices for kids. I disagree, that the marketing of unhealthy foods makes it impossible for parents to present other alternatives. I do believe that marketing creates more enticing alternatives, but in my opinion it’s ultimately the parents decision what to give a child and no one is forcing them to make that decision. There are plenty of ways to present healthier alternatives to children that make them more appealing, yet they may be more time consuming and at times not seen as being as economical. However, I personally did a little experiment where I compared the amount I spent eating out for an entire week breakfast, lunch and dinner to the amount spent purchasing healthier foods and preparing my meals at home. At the end of the week I had spent $10 less eating at home than I did eating out. Yes, it was more time consuming but as they say anything worth having is worth fighting for and what is a little time when it comes to your children’s health and well-being. The second major issue with creative marketing of unhealthy foods is the difficulty it creates in fighting obesity and promoting a healthier lifestyle. Most favorite snacks and meals that are encouraged are high in calories, salt and sugar which lead excess weight gain and cause non-communicable diseases like high blood pressure and juvenile diabetes. They also are not high in nutritional value, leading to low energy levels, further causing sedentary lifestyles and sluggish behavior. I disagree that marketing alone makes it difficult to encourage healthier living, because more goes into play in healthy living than what you eat alone. I believe that the advancement of technology and generation X, also encourages a very sedentary lifestyle. Young people are not nearly as active as earlier generations because technology puts everything within sitting reach for entertainment, and all the blame can’t rest on big bad food marketing. However with that being pointed out, I do believe it all goes back to parenting. In my opinion parents who encourage more active lifestyles, sports and creative alternatives to gaming systems, laptops and TV help to fight obesity. Taking responsibility for your children’s health, diets and activity levels is part of the responsibility of parenting, and to simply blame it on marketing and fast food restaurants because you don’t want the hassle of saying no repeatedly, standing your ground or being the bad guy is simply a scape goat.