The spread of advertising in schools has made an impact on the way children eat and drink. Advertising in schools is an easy way to get to children interested in a product since they spend a lot of their time in school. In-school advertising has a broad number of forms such as scoreboards, posters, book covers, and vending machines. Schools, the places that we send our kids to be educated, are receiving money or equipment in exchange for a company’s right to sell or promote their product on the campus.
Children are viewed by advertisers as profitable three-in-one customers; as buyers, influencers to their parents, and future consumers, which make them easy targets for advertisers. Advertisers target children because they are easily persuaded customers. Advertisers advertise to children in schools by sponsoring educational activities such as reading projects and anti-drug campaigns, then rewarding them with coupons and free meals. They advertise to children to make them want the product, then the kids influence their parents to buy it. As advertising to children in public schools becomes more acceptable to society, it has been used more often by many different kinds of advertisers. Advertisers, especially fast food advertisers, have found profitable ways to get schools to become involved in their ways of advertising to children.
The affects of the fast food industry is a major reason that there is a soaring increase in obesity and diabetes among children in the United States. Industries in and outside schools try to sell their products to kids by linking them to entertainment, such as Spiderman cereal, Play-Doh in Happy Meals, and Barbie. Also snack food and soft drink vending machines have become a popular site in most schools which persuade children to use them instead of getting something healthier. Excessive amounts of fatty fast foods can lead to health problems such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Not only are most fast foods high in fat but they are also low in important nutrients such as fiber. This is why many parents and communities disagree with the reason schools sell and advertise inside the campus.
Advertisers have many ways to get children to buy products that they otherwise would not have wanted. Fast food restaurants use educational ways to get schools to let them advertise inside them such as using educational contests to earn free prizes such as free meals. These contests are appealing to students because they promise such rewards as free pizzas, cash, trips, or other prizes. Some schools just say that the money that they make from fast food sales in the school is too much to lose by kicking the store out of the school.
Parents play important roles in the eating habits of their children. The foods that parents feed their children will become the way that their children will eat as they become adults. It is important that parents chose the healthy foods that their children eat. By eating family dinners it seems to decrease television viewing and improve diet quality. Parents can also get involved at the schools and voice their opinion on how their children eat at school and about how products such as fast foods are advertised in the school. Parents have the most control over how their children live their lifestyles.
Schools need to put a greater emphasis on the health of their children, and limit fast food advertising by finding other alternatives for their financial needs. Getting rid of the fast food at lunch, the junk food vending machines, and serving a healthier lunch would be a start to a healthier lifestyle for children. This would give school children the opportunity to live a healthy life and show them the importance of eating healthy. This would also give some children a better mental and physical outlook to who they are.
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