Food Ads That Are Like Wolves in Sheeps Clothing Essay

Food Ads That Are Like Wolves in Sheeps Clothing - Essay Example Once they watch a commercial about a food product with their favourite cartoon character, that is the image that will stick to them and then they will ask their parents to buy it for them and argue that the commercial says it’s good for them. They become enamoured with the products that are like adorable sheep not knowing that it is only the disguise of the wolves inside just waiting to prey on these naà ¯ve consumers. The video entitled â€Å"We’re Not Buying It: Stop Junk Food Marketing To Kids† (Prevention Institute, 2011) exposes how vulnerable children are to the power of food advertising especially if it caters to their interests. The video asks how the food industry can even penetrate schools with the guise of supporting charity projects but are actually marketing strategies promoting their unhealthy food and beverage products. The video also revealed that most advertised food and beverage products have too much sugar, salt and fat in them but are packaged as healthy food in order to be sold. Since children are bombarded with thousands of such food ads every year, and even incorporated in movies and their favourite video games, then they consume much of this food and drinks in their unhealthy diets. Hence, 1 in 3 children is expected to be prone to Diabetes when they grow up like 40% of their diets come from added sugars and unhealthy fats (Prevention Institute, 2011). I can relate the message in the video with some theories from Sharma & Romas (2012) taken up in class. Health Belief Model discussed in class proposes that one’s health is determined by his personal beliefs or perceptions, and if children believe the message that advertisements convey, then they get sucked into unhealthy diets and lifestyles.