Any help in my essay

0 Hi 02br
00i need your help in my first critical essay . I dont know how to conclude the essay also I think that I need to add more in the introduction (theseis statement) but I dont know what to write and do u have any suggestions for a good title for this essay . 02br
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00and this is the essay : 02br
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00 The media and the children 02br
00“The growing number of childhood overweight and obesity is a major public concern.” It’s believed that nowadays children consume more fast food than before and the number of fat children and adolescents is increasing rapidly. In the US for example, “it’s estimated that adolescents spend 140 billion dollar on food, and children under 12 spend around 25 billion on food “. There are many factors that influence eating behavior and food choice of young people and one of the important factors is the fast food advertising and marketing. Mary and Simone believe that “children have been targeted with intensive and aggressive form of food marketing and advertising practice.” But why do fast food companies want to attract children to their products? And how do they do that? These are some questions that I’ll l try to find answers for it in this essay. 02br
00 Before we talk about fast food Companies’ role in attracting children to their ‘bad’ food, let’s first shed some light on two important areas. First ,it’s important to define advertising and marketing. According to Mary and Simone, “advertisement is central to marketing of the food supply, while marketing is defined as an activity an organization engages in to facilitate an exchange between itself and its customers. Advertising is one type of marketing activity.” Secondly , it’s necessary to recognize that media plays a significant role in the lives of children. In Mary’s and Simone’s essay , it is mentioned that “ US children between the ages of two and four years view two hours of television daily ,this increase to over three hours and a half near the end of grade school ,then drop off to about 2.75 hours in later adolescence .” From this we can see that children watch television a lot and therefore television advertisements are a very good way to hook children to the fast food products and that’s what the fast food companies do . They spend a lot of money on television advertisements. To illustrate this point let’s take a look at the statistics that were mentioned in “Super size me “. “ MacDonald’s spent1.4 billion dollars on directed media advertisements. Pepsi spent one billion dollars on radio, television, and printed advertisements and Hershey spent 200 million on advertisements. However in a peak year, only two million was spent on advertising fruit and vegetables which is 100 times less than just one candy company.” This implies that the majority of food advertisements are about fast and unhealthy food. As a consequence, children watch a lot of fast food advertisements . Mary and Simone state that “US children may view between 200,00 -40,000 commercials each year and by the time they graduate from high school, they may have been exposed to 360,000 television advertisements .And food is over 50% of all advertisements targeting the children .Children view an average of one food commercial every five minutes of televion viewing time and may see approximately three hours of food commercials each week /” That’s a lot isn’t?? Not only that but fast food companies try to appeal to children specifically According to Morgan, they make colorful advertisements, cartoon characters and TV shows to attract children. They also ‘use’ famous people like Britney Spears, Michel Jordan, and David Beckam in their commercials.Those methods are very efficient. For example, children see colorful advertisements as a sign of joy and happiness and therefore they have the impression that fast food products make them happy. Using famous people in commercials has a big impact as well. When children see a very famous person like Britney Spears, for example ,making a commercial for Pepsi, they will relate Britney’s success in singing with drinking Pepsi. As a result , they will consume more and more Pepsi hoping that drinking Pepsi will make them famous like Britney and the same thing is true for other products including Burgers , French fries . 02br
00One question that arise from what he have disscued is why do fast food companies focus on children. In other words why are children the main target for fast food companies? 02br
00Researches have many answers to this question. One answer that can be implied from Mary and Simon’s essay is that children can be easily ‘trapped’ to fast food products. Their small age doesn’t help them distinguish between what’s good for their health and what’s not good. This is a logical reason that I agree with but I also have another reason for why children are the main target for fast food companies . I think that fast food companies’ goal is to get children addicted to their products from a young age and therefore make it very hard for them to quit. I can see how this works because I had the experience of being addicted to fast food. I was addicted to KFC and Hardeez and only in 2002 did I quit eating in these restaurants. And again the factors mentioned above made me addicted. I remember that I saw a very colorful commercial for Hardeez with their cartoon character (fresco) encouraging us to try the fresco meal that will make us strong and also gives us a nice toy. I went to hardeez to try the fresco meal and it was indeed very delicious and I got a nice toy of fresco. From that day I used to go there at least once a week and I kept going there until 2002 when I started reading about fast food and their negative effects on the body. 02br
00In conclusion , The growing epidemic of overweight children is caused by many factors . One of them is fast food . Fast food companies try to attract children to their products in different ways . They make colorful advertisements , cartoon shows , cartoon chartctors and promotions to get the children addicted to their unhealthy products . 02br
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00Sources : 02br
001-Mary Story and Simone French food advertising and marketing directed at children and adolescents in the US, 05000 02br
00 2-Morgan , Super size me 02br
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00 thanks 0230hrefhttp://www.ijbnpa.org/content/1/1/3