Nowadays, advertising is a constant companion of people’s life. It dictates strict standards of beauty and behavior, affecting almost everyone on both conscious and subconscious levels. One of the most important problems that arouse the interest of researchers is the influence of advertising on the formation of models of food behavior and, above all, its involvement in the formation of food addiction. Thus, while biological factors determine body type, there is an external influence to take into account when speaking about weight-related health issues – such as advertising and social environment. Today, people are gaining weight from unhealthy food choices that are largely advertised everywhere by large food corporations. The population indulges in high-calorie, non-nutritious snacks and drinks, which, with the lack of exercise, contribute to the worldwide obesity epidemic.
Many studies attribute obesity to complex, multifactorial, and multigene disorders, which are closely associated with the characteristics of the psycho-socio-cultural environment. For example, Clemmensen et al. (2020) state that “a widening societal inequality propelled by the political interventions against COVID-19 might translate into an increase in obesity occurrence in groups with a lower socieconomic status” (p. 469). The dramatic rise in the prevalence of obesity in the past 30 years is a direct result of cultural and environmental influences. Researchers state that, among other important aspects of the problem, food advertising remains the leading factor in causing food addiction and, ultimately, increasing the rates of obesity all around the world.
Obesity and Its Impact on Human Health
There are three main types of eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, and obesity. Anorexia is a disorder characterized by deliberate weight loss that is caused and maintained by the patient themselves. On the other hand, bulimia takes the form of repeated and uncontrolled episodes of absorption of large amounts of food for a short period of time, followed by induction of vomiting and refusal to eat. Finally, obesity is the accumulation of body fat resulting in overweight due to increased calorie intake. Often a person who is faced with one type of eating disorder experiences different varieties of them at different periods of their life. Today, obesity is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. Its prevalence is so great that it had long acquired the character of a non-infectious epidemic all over the globe.
Causes of Obesity
Obesity is a result of a combination of factors, including a decrease in physical activity, constant intake of high-calorie foods, as well as the presence of genes that influence the possibility of gaining weight. However, ultimately, obesity is the direct consequence of consuming more calories than the body needs for a long time. According to Katzmarzyk et al. (2019), “the nutrition transition is characterized by a shift towards a diet comprised of more animal-based food products and processed food high in saturated fats and sugar” (p. 853). Larger portions in restaurants or prepackaged foods and drinks are pushing people to overeat. Moreover, such foods are often prepared in ways that add even more calories to already nutritious products. As a result, people consume more calories than they think they do. Convenience foods, vending energy snacks, and fast-food restaurants also contribute to an increase in the number of obese people due to a high level of sugar in them.
Thus, the main cause of obesity in both adults and children is overeating. Chronic overeating leads to disturbances in the work of the appetite center in the brain, and a normal amount of food eaten can no longer suppress hunger to the required degree. Excess calories cannot be burned by the body, so they are deposited as a reserve in the fat depot; subsequently, the amount of fat increases accordingly, thus resulting in obesity. However, there are a lot of reasons forcing a person to overeat. Strong excitement can reduce the sensitivity of the saturation center in the brain, and a person begins to eat more food without actually noticing. A similar situation can be the result of a number of psycho-emotional factors, such as feelings of loneliness, anxiety, melancholy, as well as of suffering from neuroses. According to Clemmensen et al. (2020), “psychosocial stress reactions have been found to increase energy intake, and individuals with limited social interactions are at an increased risk of developing obesity” (p. 469). In these cases, food seems to work as a substitute for positive emotions.
In first-world countries, physical inactivity is quite widespread, which also definitely plays a big role in increasing the incidence of obesity. Exercise opportunities have been supplanted by technical advances such as elevators, cars, and remote controls. People spend more time sedentary – sitting at the computer, watching TV, and playing video games. In addition, work is also becoming more sedentary, as office and desk work replaces manual labor. Thus, when calorie intake is not reduced according to the person’s inactive lifestyle, they will steadily gain weight, developing obesity.
Health Risks of Obesity
Obesity poses a serious health risk and is accompanied by the development of such serious diseases like type 2 diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, coronary heart disease, and myocardial infarction. Moreover, obesity can even influence the growth of malignant tumors of different origins. The consequences of obesity, in turn, lead to a decrease in working capacity, early disability, and a reduction in the life expectancy of patients. The risk of death from any causes, including cardiovascular disease and malignant neoplasms, is increased in men and women of all age groups who suffer from obesity of varying severity: from moderate to significant. Clemmensen et al. (2020) state that “excess energy intake, without a concomitant increase in substrate metabolism and/or fat storage capacity, might accelerate lipotoxicity, ectopic fat deposition, low-grade inflammation and insulin resistance” (p. 470). Therefore, obesity is a heavy economic burden for the state. In first-world countries, the treatment of obesity and its complications accounts for almost a tenth of the annual health care costs in general. Additionally, obesity leads to an increase in the cost of treatment of almost all diseases – especially type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Obesity as a Social Problem
Obesity has remained a huge social problem since the end of the XX century. Wang et al. (2020) projected that “by 2030, over half of the men (55.6%) and 80.0% of women would have central obesity” (p. 821). People with obesity do not just have problems with their health and mobility, they also often suffer from depression or other mental disorders due to low self-esteem and quality of life. The prejudice of other people, even when completely irrational, is one of the reasons behind the obese people’s disruption in the fulfillment of dietary restrictions. Discomfort, frustration, generalized anxiety, and poor social well-being – all these belong to the manifestations of the results of the influence of stress caused by obesity that affect people at different levels: personal, social, and psychological. These emotional issues cause the need to compensate for “suffering” with available encouragement – such as food. This creates a vicious circle of overeating which produces even more stress.
In the XXI century, people start rapidly gaining weight due to abrupt changes in all spheres of life: a drop in life quality, a rapid rise of unemployment and poverty, and additional stress from uncertainty. In this period, the paradigm of nutrition itself, as well as the general idea of family food traditions, have changed. Affordable and cheap products have appeared on the market, and parental control over the nutrition of children has decreased, which led to unhealthy food becoming more available for children. The typical leisure activity has changed, too, and not in a good way. The focus of leisure activity – the content side of spending free time – is an important factor that determines the specifics and quality of free time that influences an individual heavily. More physically undemanding forms of spending free time started to prevail: for example, watching TV, listening to radio broadcasts, or just resting on the couch. In the absence of any leisure activity outside the house, people had much fewer opportunities of spending excess calories from their food. Now, this issue is widely addressed all over the world, as the importance of physical activity is brought back into the light.
The Role of Advertising and Food Companies in the Problem of Obesity
Several studies have convincingly proved a significant increase in the amount of food taken under exposure to food advertisements. This fact led scientists to suggest that this type of advertising can contribute to the epidemic of obesity, as well as other eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. Today’s enhanced marketing practices make the consumer unconsciously and without hesitation buy junk food, which leads directly to the problem of obesity. The influence of advertising is also confirmed by the fact that obesity is more common among children under the age of seven when the child is not yet able to critically evaluate the incoming information.
Young people find it difficult to comprehend that advertising is a tool used to sell products. It is not until the age of 12 that many children begin to fully understand what advertising is all about. The companies’ failure to create a responsible marketing approach can lead to unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles. Social and economic development, agricultural policies, food distribution, and marketing have an impact on the habits and preferences of people in the field of nutrition. This exposure is increasingly contributing to unhealthy weight gain, leading to a sustained rise in obesity prevalence.
What Food Companies Are Doing Wrong
Preventing and combating obesity is the shared responsibility of consumers, government, non-governmental organizations, and food manufacturers and suppliers. However, food companies might have a bigger part in this shared responsibility, as they are selling unhealthy food using deceptive information. They often hide important caloric information so that people will not hesitate to buy it while simultaneously adding that these products are not only cheap but also healthy. Hence, this situation causes people to overeat and, as a result, contributes to the issue of obesity. When it comes to food addiction, food companies are very firmly aware of people’s vulnerability, use it as an advantage to make the masses believe their statements and advertisements.
Some critics have mistakenly concluded that the subsidies paid to farmers to grow crops are something that is wrong with the food system. However, subsidies are an only sign of a broken system, but not the cause. The main problem with the current food system is that it adheres to the concept of a free market, which allows commodities such as corn to be priced according to the demands of the said market. Hall (2018) adds that “the increased food availability was driven by economic and policy influences to maximize the agricultural production of cheap inputs to an increasingly industrialized food system that intensively marketed ‘added value’ foods” (p. 12). Cheap corn and soybeans allow agribusiness to develop monopoly power over farmers and generate huge profits, leaving farmers ruined and dependent on subsidies. Food companies contribute to that situation due to the fact that it is profitable for them, as it allows them to produce more at fewer expenses.
Food companies tend to strengthen and support food choices that are detrimental to human health, which is why they are actively contributing to obesity in the United States. Moreover, they are misleading the public about healthier diets by repeatedly promoting fast food at low prices. In fact, using attractive ads with hidden information is misleading; however, it is not viewed as an issue, despite all the consequences. The same companies also use immoral business strategies to exploit children’s lack of critical knowledge, which ultimately mislead children towards consuming unhealthy foods. Moreover, their bright and manipulative marketing ensures that these children will become future customers who will subconsciously consume food without thinking whether it is healthy or not. The hidden consequences lie in the further promotion of unhealthy food, even more so because nowadays, food companies tend to mislead parents into buying fast food since it has become the only choice for schools. Thus, it is important to say that food companies should be held legally accountable for providing truthful information. They should communicate the results of excessive food consumption to the public and stop misleading consumers by promoting unhealthy products through false advertising.
The Specific Dangers of Children Obesity
Obesity has quite a complex nature, and a variety of factors contributes to its development, such as biological, genetic, environmental, and psychosocial features. Serious medical and neurocognitive consequences follow obesity if it is experienced at a young age. Childhood obesity also proved to be one of the causes of decreased school performance and low self-esteem. Additionally, it has long-term negative consequences in the form of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases in adulthood.
The persistence of obesity in adulthood points out the lack of proper studies on the reasons behind childhood obesity in general, while it clearly has a long-lasting impact on people’s health and quality of life. More than half of all obese adults’ overweight gain begins from childhood. It is also accompanied by a more pronounced weight gain and a greater frequency of concomitant diseases than when obesity is obtained during adulthood. The rates of obesity cases among young people went up dramatically in the second half of the XX century, marking a new special health care issue in many countries.
The main cause of obesity is an energy imbalance associated with the consumption of foods high in calories, fat, salt, and sugar. Aggressive marketing is one of the main factors influencing the choice and formation of unhealthy eating habits. At the same time, it is children who are often the target of marketing strategies for the food industry. Most of the products advertised for children should be limited on the children’s menu due to their contents; however, it does not stop the food companies from actively promoting them. High consumption of such foods proves to have a part in the current obesity epidemic among children, which rapidly becomes a severe global problem.
Why Children Are at Risk
In recent years, the overall American food industry began perceiving children and young people as a very desirable market. Due to this, children and adolescents were targeted at the extreme by the aggressive advertising from the food companies. It is stated that food companies desire children as their direct consumers because of their unlimited spending ability, as well as because they can become their future adult clients. The fact that children have become direct recipients of advertising is also due to the fact that they are increasingly becoming independent buyers or have a greater influence on their parents. A variety of methods is at the advertisers’ disposal to address the young people specifically: through TV ads, videogames, food or toys. Celebrities who are popular among children are quite often used to promote unhealthy products. Colorful animations, a funny melody, friendly talking animals – these are just some of the tricks used in commercials aimed at capturing the attention of a small consumer. This creates an inappropriate perception of nutrition, which is detrimental to the health and development of the child.
Especially intensively abused in this regard are preschool children who are not yet able to critically evaluate the information broadcast to them. They often perceive the advertising literally, and their preferences are often the result of fantasy. Preschoolers do not understand that the purpose of advertising is to encourage them to buy, which is why they are such attractive customers. During the constant and extensive daily contact with such messages, unhealthy choices can become fixed, turning into habits. Subsequently, habits formed in early childhood often persist later into adulthood. The fact that children are much more susceptible to such content contributes to the increase in obesity rates not only at a young age but also becomes a problem in the future.
Many scientific studies have clearly shown a direct relationship between the prevalence of obesity among children and the intensity of the advertising flow of high-calorie foods with low biological value. In many countries, the marketing of such products is even controlled at the state level. For example, the UK has banned advertisements for foods high in fat, salt, and sugar on children’s shows.
Conclusion
Obesity and food addiction have become a widespread and significant problem of the modern society, both health-related and social. Acceleration of the movement of society along more and more complicated trajectories of social and cultural development affects the functioning of life values, including the nature of human nutrition. Industrialization, rationalization, and globalization of the food industry have ambivalent implications for the modern human.
On the one hand, food consumption goes out of the local-cultural, seasonal, and climatic context, is carried out more efficiently and with less time, and controlled quality and calorie content. On the other, the reflection of food consumption is increasingly manipulated by global agribusiness with the pragmatic interest of increasing profits through imposing cosmopolitan food and appropriate taste. This, in turn, gives rise to new manifestations of dehumanization, alienation, and culturally determined diseases such as anorexia, obesity, diabetes, and many others. Since this situation is considered a social problem, in order to solve it, a multisector, multidisciplinary approach is needed at the level of state policies. This approach would need to take into account the characteristics of the economy, education, and culture of specific countries in which it would be implemented.
The state is able to create certain conditions that will, if not hinder, but at least would not provoke an increase in the prevalence of obesity and food addiction among the US population. However, for this, it would have to develop effective programs and mechanisms for providing the population with healthy food, as well as for rationalization of food distribution among the people. Moreover, the state needs to contribute to a formation of a culture of a healthy lifestyle, improving the overall quality of life. The growing prevalence of obesity requires taking all possible social measures to contain it. Obesity in the absolute majority of cases has an exogenous constitutional nature – that is, due to the influence of environmental factors with a hereditary predisposition to weight gain. Understanding its effect on the quality of life of the population in general and an individual specifically is essential.
References
Clemmensen, C., Petersen, M. B., & Sørensen, T. I. (2020). Will the COVID-19 pandemic worsen the obesity epidemic?Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 16(9), 469–470.
Hall, K. D. (2017). Did the food environment cause the obesity epidemic?Obesity, 26(1), 11–13.
Katzmarzyk, P. T., Chaput, J.-P., Fogelholm, M., Hu, G., Maher, C., Maia, J., Olds, T., Sarmiento, O. L., Standage, M., Tremblay, M. S., & Tudor-Locke, C. (2019). International study of childhood obesity, lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE): Contributions to understanding the global obesity epidemic. Nutrients, 11(4), 848.
Wang, Y., Beydoun, M. A., Min, J., Xue, H., Kaminsky, L. A., & Cheskin, L. J. (2020). Has the prevalence of overweight, obesity and central obesity levelled off in the United States? Trends, patterns, disparities, and future projections for the obesity epidemic. International Journal of Epidemiology, 49(3), 810–823.