My View

 My opinion on children and advertising

Honestly, I can say that I was also one of the kids, who were easily influenced by advertising. I remember how I have always wanted to buy all new toys I saw advertised, especially before Christmas. Even if it was more than ten years ago, every time I see advertisements before Christmas, I feel kind of nostalgy and maybe I would like to return back to my childhood for a while. Consequently, I am not the type of person who would judge advertising, because I think that it really is strongly connected with marketing and they are just doing their job, because otherwise there will be no point of advertising industry‘s existence.

In general, I think that children and advertising are a topic, which does not have solution. We can only control them and talk to them, but it can not be avoided, because world is full of media and advertising is it’s part. There are people who judge advertising and others do not care about it. As it is in life with everything, not all people will be in favor.

In my opinion, companies do a smart step how to attract people to buy their products, because especially children are a group, which can be easily influenced. (Ipatenco, 2018)

A huge disadvantage are advertisements that can influence children’s lifestyle. It is an serious issue in comparisson with TV and toy industry. As fast food industries launch new products, full of unhealthy fats and sugars, they make new advertisements and because these advertisements are everywhere, children have easy access to them. They eat what they see, so there is no doubt that a 7 year old boy would want chicken nugets with fries, because he just saw a kid menu with a toy for free. That is the factor, which makes children fat and the rate of obesity is much higher that it used to be. If we look back to the past, people in general used to live much healthier and there were just some cases of obesity. Nowadays, the rate of obesity is much higher, especially because of new opportunities and expansion of food industries. Hundred years ago, there was no fast food industry, no happy meal menu or no extra cola for free. If children eat these products on daily basis, it will have negative impact for their whole life, because they will not be able to create healthy eating habits. What I consider as a main problem is that their parents mostly do not talk to them or maybe they have the same eating habits. That is why children overeat by sweets and fast food, because they not only see it in media, but also see it as an example from their parents. Fast food industries should deffinitely come up with some ideas of healthy eating to show children another perspective of lifestyle. As children, they do not care about it, but as adults they may regret all the years of overeating, because it can destroy their metabolism, heart, stomach and also cause other health problems (The National, 2018).                                                                               

"Fast food intake more than three times a week is associated with greater odds of athopic disorders such as asthma, eczema or rhinitis, while asthma severinity is almost 40% higher in teenagers and more than 30% in younger children." (Thomas, 2018)

References:  1) The National. How children can be influenced [online]. Manchester: HowCast, 2018 [cit. 2018-12-08]. Retrieved from: https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/family/the-immediate-effect-fast-food-has-on-children-1.317147 

2) THOMAS, Liji. Children and media. News Medical LifeSciences. 2018, 2018(3), 150. 

3) IPATENCO, Sara. What attracts children to eat fast food. SF GATE. 2018, 2018(2), 20.