Summary: The Importance Of Food Marketing To Children

Marketing refers to the process employed by companies to encourage the consumption of their commodities. The food industry is one industry that employs this advertising as an essential marketing tool to sell its products. Food marketing to children has been identified as playing a key role in the national obesity crisis facing American children today (Center, 2016). However, the industry has been in the limelight in recent years, courtesy of its marketing with children. Foods target children and include the energy-dense fast foods, soft drinks that are carbonated, sugary cereals for breakfast, snacks and baked products usually have high contents of fats, sugars, and salts. In other words, these commodities have poor nutritive elements (Buckingham, 2014). Some experts have remained adamant that such kinds of foods contribute to an obesogenic environment, which makes the choices of healthy meals very challenging and more so for children following the marketing of the products. The main controversy today is in the manner in which advertising of these foods by the food companies affects the …show more content…
It thus ensures that advertising to children below the age of eight is illegal because it takes advantage of the inability these children have in attributing the persuasive intent of advertising (American Psychology Association, 2016). Children in this age bracket comprehend the television information from the advertisements without criticism and accept most of the detail as true, unbiased, and accurate. Previously, the advertisers saw the children in this age bracket as off limits until recently when the industry practices developed media technologies that facilitate higher degrees of programming in the niche of ages and related commercials (American Psychology Association,