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Food and Marketing
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Food and Marketing
The fast food industry grew rapidly in the 1950s while chain restaurants and casual family dining shaped up in the 1960s. By the turn of the second millennium, more families started dining out on a regular basis. As fast food chains and outlets multiplied along American streets, dining out increased and waistline sizes followed the same trend (Stirrat, 2007). The increased cases of obesity compelled public health organizations and critics to push for ‘diet reforms’ in the industry. For example, the industry is a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic, and it also holds the key that can effectively control the scourge (Stirrat, 2007). In a similar manner, Jessica Lundgren has made her valuable contribution to this debate by calling for healthier dishes and sides rather than ‘better for you’ options that have no effect in controlling the prevalence of obesity. While aIDressing this issue, Lundgren (2009) focuses on commercial adverts primarily from Subway Restaurant that are intentionally or skillfully designed to mislead consumers that fast food is healthy or preferable by comparison with other foods from different restaurants. For instance, the author mentions that the adverts are meant to appeal, persuade, and attract potential consumers into buying fast food dishes, yet the restaurants know and that the healthiness and nutritional benefits of food are questionable.
In “‘Eating Fresh’ in America: Subway Restaurant’s Nutritional Rhetoric,” Lundgren convincingly argues that the restaurant’s children’s adverts are equally misleading and successful at the same time (115). For example, the adverts provide misleading stereotypes against fat people that they are unhealthy, unwell and unfit. Conversely, the misleading adverts successfully led to sales increase of 47.5% in one year. Since, Lundgren focuses on how ‘children’s adverts’ make them glued to the television and develop poor eating habits, I argue that the adverts fail to aIDress some salient issues that undermine the ‘healthiness’ of the foods they promote.
Yale News research shows that restaurants offer a variety of side dishes and drinks that are not as healthy as the dishes showcased in their advertisements. These side dishes and drinks are meant to attract the attention of children since they cannot resist the delicacies (Yale News, 2013). For example, once the children walk into fast food chains to purchase the advertised healthy foods, they get exposed to unadvertised unhealthy foods that are more delicious than the former. Accordingly, they end up purchasing sweetness at the expense of health. Yale News reports that unhealthy side dishes and beverages dominate menus and nothing prevent children from selecting these dishes and drinks. Only a dozen dishes are healthy instead of 3039. The remaining dishes have high calorie, sugar and saturated fat contents (Yale News, 2013).
Similarly, Stirrat (2007) laments that companies are increasingly investing in children adverts because of the influence they have on their parents. Companies design their adverts skillfully to ensure that they attract the attention of children. For instance, previous research and studies shows that most children influence the shopping of their mothers (Stirrat, 2007). Children will implore or convince their mothers to purchase foodstuffs that they observe being advertised on the television or other mass media. Parents pretend that they restrict the dishes that their children eat but give in to their demands every week. In most cases, weekends are preserved for family outings where children find an opportunity to eat anything they desire, whether healthy or unhealthy (Stirrat, 2007).
Obesity has become a national challenge that all stakeholders must fight in the American society. Fast food industry must improve the healthiness of their dishes and also provide sufficient nutritional information that allows consumers to make healthy choices rather than ‘better-for-you’ choices. Accordingly, the industry must avoid placing commercial interests ahead of the health of a nation (Yale News, 2013).
References
Lundgren, J. (2009). “Eating Fresh” in America: Subway Restaurant’s Nutritional Rhetoric. Young Scholars in Writing, 06 (Spring), 110-117
Stirrat, J. (2007). A Rhetorical Exploration of Fast Food Marketing to Children. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 1-52
Yale News (2013). Fast Food Restaurants Dish up Unhealthy Marketing to Youth; Researchers Release Unprecedented Report on Fast Food Nutrition and Marketing. Retrieved from: http://news.yale.edu/2010/11/08/fast-food-restaurants-dish-unhealthy-marketing-youth-researchers-release-unprecedented-re (Accessed: 9 Oct 2013).