Alexander Sanchez
4/13/2010

In the United State, the obesity rate has increased in the past years. Fast food companies are targeting children through advertisements. McDonald’s, for example, is very unhealthy, and shouldn’t be advertised to children because it’s raising the obesity rate. McDonald’s is trying to gain children’s attention through commercials, kid meals with toys and playgrounds. It has been proven that McDonald’s and other fast food industries have made a great contribution to the obesity rate, which has increased due to the poor quality of their food. Obesity can cause many health issues such as heart attacks, cancers and diabetes

Did you know that the clown character that McDonald’s always uses in advertisement know as Ronald McDonald is one of the most known figures in the world? This is because McDonalds spends 2 billion dollars to make sure the audience buys their product. Ray Kroc, the man who created the McDonald’s empire, understood from day one that children were the ones who he wanted to target. He used characters like Speede and Ronald McDonald to attract the kids to buy the burgers and shakes. But have you ever seen Ronald McDonalds in any commercial or advertisement eating or even touching any McDonald’s product? He sings, giggles, and smiles at the kids while they stuff their faces, but he never takes a bite of a cheeseburger. In my opinion it’s because, like Eazy-E said in the song “The Dopeman”, "Don't get high off your own supply."

On www.kdvr.com there is an interesting article titled “Colo. woman says McDonald's meal still 'Happy' one year later”. Where a woman named Joann Bruco claims her Happy Meal stayed preserved on her book shelf for almost a year after she bought it. Rather than molding or decaying like any other meat would, it looked the same as when she bought it. "You would think you could eat it" said Joann. She admits that the food stayed looking 'happy' a lot longer than she expected. While the buns got hard, the meat dried up, and the fries became frozen. She states, “I didn't expect it to look that good”. This just goes show how unhealthy and low quality McDonalds really is. McDonalds claim they “deliver quality food, and we take that responsibility seriously.” “We’re dedicated to making you feel good about choosing McDonald's foods and beverages.” Is that why McDonalds is purposely producing their food with chemical additives that are designed specifically to increase your appetite, get you physically and chemically addicted to their food, for their product to last long and make you fat.

There has been many lawsuits against McDonald’s, some more significant than others. A noteworthy case to look at would be the case with the two overweight girls that sued McDonald’s because they claimed that McDonalds was all they saw when young and that’s what they became accustomed to eat. The girls were overweigh one was 5'9" and weighs 270 pounds, while the other was about 5'3" and 200 pounds. Each girl is at least 80 pounds overweight, according to government statistics. There claim was that they are suing McDonald’s on the behalf of children. They say that “It's hard to argue that a 6, or 8 or 10-year-old child has to take full responsibility for their decisions when they're lured into McDonald's by the toys and the playground and happy meals and the birthday parties.” They lost the case because they didn’t have enough proof to show that McDonald’s was the real reason for their overweight. Meanwhile, McDonalds said "Any processing our foods undergo make them more dangerous than unprocessed foods".

You might not think of it but what McDonald’s has created has revolutionized how we view healthy food. In today cafeterias we feed our children frozen cheeseburgers and fries with the mentality that they are eating healthy. This explains why the obesity rate among children has increased in the past years. In the website www.topnews.us there is an article named “Improved Quality Food to be Given a Priority in School Lunch Program”. The article shows how we are trying to improve school lunches. The website states “This bill is expected to increase the effectiveness of lunch programs”. Maybe now, little by little, we can start making a change in our children’s eating habits and take them away from McDonalds Cheeseburger and French fries.

In conclusion, I think McDonald’s success is very wrong because they are targeting kids to gain profit. It’s sad how McDonald’s brainwashes kids for example, how children before they can speak they can recognize McDonald’s. They know their food is low quality and can harm kids. McDonalds should stop advertising to children because it is causing lots of illnesses such as obesity.



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