We live in a world where everything is managed through marketing and advertisements are the principal base of it. After reading chapter two of “Fast Food Nation”, and watching the documentary “Super Size Me”. I realize how advertisements, especially of fast food, can influence peoples’ mind, especially children’s mind. For example, McDonald’s, which is a fast food restaurant, pays a lot of money in advertisements. It is interesting to see the methods that they use to convince children, who are the first customers, to buy its food. They offer toys in meals (Happy Meals), playlands, parties, etc. Toys and playlands are one of the weakness parts for children, so if fast food restaurants offer these, parents take children to that place.
TV commercials are one of the biggest influences for our children. For example, when children see the clown of McDonald’s (Ronald), they can easily recognize who he is. But if we show them a photo of some ex-president or an ancestor figure, they cannot recognize it. That is because many children spend many hours in front of TV, and the most things that you see on TV are commercials. As an example, I have a sister who is 11 years old; she sees on TV about a new toy that McDonald’s offers in its happy meal menu, so she convinces my mother to take her to the restaurant. And as a consequence my mother also buys a combo menu for her too. The chapter of the book mentions that Ray Kroc believe that children love commercials on TV and that is the clue to bring the parents to McDonald’s and earn two more customers.
On the other hand, fast food is a poison for us because it causes physical and psychological damage to our body. There are many people who consume this kind of food three times a days and the consequence for that is obesity. In the film that we saw, Morgan Spurlock, experimented the “McDonald’s diet” and as a consequence he had breathing, sexual, and digestion problems. Also after several days he felt very agitated. So with this real example, we should be aware that this type of food is really bad for our health and the only thing that interesting to fast food restaurant about us, is our money.
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