Fast food is a mass-produced food industry that governs American dietary intake and affects American economics and society drastically. The development of small street vendors into larger businesses overwhelms the U.S. restaurant industry. As restaurants that Americans spend so much time in and around, fast food has become a defining aspect of American culture and society. Fast food is a business that dominates the majority of the food industry, and advertisements play an important role in its success. Fast food advertisements use similar marketing strategies in an attempt to lure more people to their company primarily through the implementation of children’s collectibles, all leading to an indoctrination cycle for fast food.
Fast food industry superpowers, namely McDonald’s and Burger King, all use collectibles as an effective marketing strategy. Over the course of daily life, kids absorb numerous commercials promoting premiums based on their favorite characters, eventually asking their parents to take them to McDonald’s. This deceitful tactic of repetitive advertising using children’s collectibles induces kids into a fast food coma, ultimately turning them into future customers. The Federal Trade Commission has reported that fast food companies, with McDonald’s by far in the lead, has spent $360 million in 2006 on toys to market children’s meals. In the same year, fast food restaurants sold more than 1.2 billion children’s meals with toys to children ages 12 and under, accounting for 20 percent of all child traffic at those restaurants (Food Marketing to Children). It would be no surprise for companies to employ such a profitable practice. Throughout the years, America has been on the brink of the obesity epidemic that has seen rates of overweight and obesity in children. These factors span from video games to less physical exercise in schools, but one major factor is the increased ubiquity of inexpensive, high-calorie foods. McDonald’s is one of the biggest players in this game of marketing food to children. According to the Associated Press, in 2003 sales of Happy Meals amounted to $3.4 billion and made up about 20 percent of McDonald’s overall sales. These non-salutary choices, despite being inexpensive, are never necessary to consume as the health effects are far more expensive and damaging. Therefore, the use of children’s collectibles is one of the many sly tactics fast food companies use to keep their young customers addicted.
Quick service restaurants have a prerogative to cater to the modern day lifestyle, with fast service that provides a tasty meal. It is disputed that despite these meals being high in sodium and choleric intake, they are necessary during economic hardship. However, those who castigate these claims fail to recognize the health damages caused by consuming fast food. Fast food industries all employ abusive marketing strategies in an attempt to draw more people to buy their product. The manipulative advertising from fast food restaurants would only harm the community of Bernardsville, therefore the developing Bernardsville Centre must steer clear of these detrimental stores.
Works Cited
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Fastfoodmain : USDA ARS, <www.ars.usda.gov/oc/kids/nutrition/story10/fastfoodmain/>
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“Food Marketing to Children.” Food Marketing Workgroup, www<www.foodmarketing.org/resources/food-marketing-101/food-marketing-to-children/>
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“Preventing Chronic Disease | Temporal Trends in Fast-Food Restaurant Energy, Sodium, Fat, wwwand Trans Fat Content, United States, 1996–2013 - CDC.” Centers for Control and wwwPrevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31 Dec. 2014, www<www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2014/14_0202.htm>