Children often recognize the McDonald’s logo before they recognize their own name.
The average child sees 10,000 food advertisements each year
American children see over a 1000 fast food commercials on television every year, and hundreds more from McDonald's than any other brand. McDonald's ads reach children between the ages of 2-11 more than twice the amount of its competitors in the U.S.
Experts say children are particularly sensitive to marketing because their development stage (especially at age 8 and younger) has not yet enabled them to recognize an intentional promotion.
According to WHO if current trends continue the number of overweight or obese infants and young children (aged 0 to 5 years) globally will increase from 32 million globally in 1990 through 41 million in 2016 to 70 million by 2025.
Children are encouraged by restaurants to choose specific menu items when they are linked to free toys - HFIO.
As poor countries – particularly in East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean – have become wealthier, children who were mostly underweight have also become mostly overweight.
“These worrying trends reflect the impact of food marketing and policies across the globe, with healthy, nutritious foods too expensive for poor families and communities,” said Professor Majjid Ezzati, lead author of the childhood obesity study from Imperial College London. “The trend predicts a generation of children and adolescents growing up obese and also malnourished. We need ways to make healthy, nutritious food more available at home and school, especially in poor families and communities, and regulations and taxes to protect children from unhealthy foods.” - The Guardian.
In the interest of children’s health, San Francisco lawmakers attempted to ban McDonald’s from giving away toys with Happy Meals. However, McDonald’s lawyers found a loophole—they were able to offer the toys as an additional 10 cent purchase.
Obesity will overtake smoking if left unabated as the #1 cause of preventable death in the U.S.
Environmental Problems
Packaging waste is one of many environmental problems McDonald’s should tackle with. Considering how much waste is created when getting a meal from McDonald’s: a wrapper for burger, a box for fries, a cup for drinks with a lid and a straw, napkins, and a bag for individual use. McDonald’s use tons of unnecessary packing everyday, which end up littering on the street and buried in landfills
Recycling may help ease the pollution of waste but mass consumption of unnecessary packaging is the key problem to packaging waste issue. McDonald’s should focus more on reducing the amount of waste it produce.
If the large fast-food company like McDonald's does not control the waste product from the restaurant and save the planet, people will surely perish themselves one day.
Unfortunately, I am not able to draw attention to all fast food industry impacts such as agriculture, economic, advertising, environmental, health and more.
Mcdonalds served us only as an example of what corporate greed leads to, unfortunately, there is a mass of other food corporations that contribute to the destruction of any possibility of a decent future for the next generations and environment.
However, it is us as consumers, we give a vote every time we buy a product, so maybe we should start to"vote" wisely.
