Advertisement Should Not Be Allowed In Schools!

Fast food is famous all around America not only because is good tasting, quick, and convenient but mostly because it’s extremely cheap. It is very popular because with less than $5.00, you can get a filling meal. You can come across a fast food restaurant anywhere you go and it is always full with people. However, fast food is made with cheap ingredients such as high fat meat, refined grains, and added sugar and fats, instead of nutritious foods such as lean meats, fresh fruits, and vegetables. This is why as we all know, America is facing an obesity epidemic, specially children. The fast food chain use children as their main target for adverting anywhere possible but what is very aggravating is the fact that even schools are now serving and promoting fast food even though they know it‘s very unhealthy.

The Fast food industry has grown enormously over the years due to its advertising strategies. In chapter 2, “Your Trusted Friends” from his book Fast food Nation, Eric Schlosser makes the reader become aware of techniques fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s use to advertise their products. He explains why children have become the main target for advertising. “The aim of most children’s advertising is straightforward: get kids to nag their parents and nag them well” (43). He makes it very clear that the reason why advertisers go after children is because parents will buy anything for their kids as long as they stop nagging. Another reason why kids are its main target is because children are easily influenced by commercials on TV or ads they see on the street so kids are more likely to be tempted and ask their parents for that certain product being advertise.

“Not satisfied with marketing to children through playgrounds, toys, cartoons, movies, videos, charities, and amusements parks, through contests, sweepstakes, games, and clubs, via television, radio, magazines, and the Internet” (51) says Eric Schlosser, fast food chains are now even advertise and served in most public schools. School is suppose to be a place where children learn good things that will help them in their future but if they see ads of a hamburger with French fries around the hallways, they will be given a good image of fast food and will also be tempted to eat it. Fast food should not be advertised or served in schools because this will only confuse the kids and make them think it is okay to eat it but what they don’t know is that as good tasting as it may be, it ruins their health. Parents send their kids to school every morning thinking school is a “safe learning place” but what doesn’t cross their mind is that they should also be concerned about what their kids are being served for lunch.

I decided to take a trip to my cousin’s middle-school and see what she was eating for lunch myself. As soon as I walked in the lunchroom, I came across 3 vending machines. Two were full of junk food and the other one contained every type of soda brand including Coca Cola, Sprite, Pepsi and a few others. The menu for that day was cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, or pizza. The children have the option to pick one of these and it’s served along with French Fries including a little bag with mayonnaise and ketchup. Is it very upsetting to see that although most children consider school to be their second home, they are being fed food that will damage their health system. Instead of serving and helping advertise fast food, schools need be teaching the children why eating healthy food is important and how unhealthy and dangerous the consequences of eating fast food can be. Perhaps a health class where the children can learn ways to have a healthy lifestyle such as exercising, eating a balanced diet, taking vitamins etc. will help prevent children from eating as much junk food. Or better yet, the schools can simply stop selling, serving and advertising junk food.

Now a days, obesity in children is a massive problem. The main cause of obesity is obviously the unhealthy life-style children carry. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that “some very obese children have high blood pressure and cholesterol. And Kaiser experts treat some teens with Type 2 diabetes, a weight-linked disease that normally hits adults older than 40. In fact, the group of U.S. residents at highest risk for diabetes is Latino girls: More than half the Latino girls born in 2000 will develop diabetes unless the nation's eating and exercise patterns change” says Andy Dworkin in his article Health Every Period. It is very dangerous and life-risking for children to have these type of diseases and if advertising for fast food in schools continue, this will only increase the amount of obese children. Isn’t incredible to think that if children keep on eating processed food, their lives will be shorter than their own parents?.

However, the problem of children eating so much fast food isn’t only schools. Parents should also be well informed of what they are feeding their kids. In some cases, parents who please their children because they feel guilty they don’t spend much time with their kids are the ones who usually think that taking them to McDonald’s or perhaps buying them what they want is a way to make up for it. Then, there’s those parents who take their kids to McDonald’s, Burger king or any other fast food restaurant that attract kids as way of rewarding their children for good behavior or getting good grades at school. In other cases, it is simply because as we all know, fast food is way cheaper than healthy food. What ever the case might be, we should keep in mind that parents are a big influence on kids and if the parents are unhealthy, there is a big possibility that the children will be unhealthy as well.

In conclusion, There is a place and time for everything and school is simply not the right place for fast food adverting. Kids spend half their day in school and should be learning stuff that will be for their own benefit not being served food that is putting them in risk of suffering from diseases that can cause their own death.




Dworkin, Andy. "Health Every Period." Editorial. 24 Mar. 2010. Web.
Schlosser, Eric. “Your Trusted Friends.” Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 31-58. Print.