Advertising in the Food Industry

Recently, in my Sociology class we were shown an excerpt from a Canadian documentary called The Corporation. The clip we watched had little, if anything, to do with the food industry; I was intrigued by the film's concept though, so when I went back to my room after class ended I watched the rest of the movie. What immediately struck me were clear similarities between this film and Morgan Spurlock's 2004 film Supersize Me. While The Corporation largely deals with commercial institutions, some points of interest the movie put forth could easily be compared to the food industry.



A large segment of the film discusses advertising, and how for the first time in history, toy and food products aren't being directed at the parents or the ones making the purchase, but rather the children. A survey showed that when commercials are geared directly at showing children specifically how desirable a certain product was, they were exponentially more likely to nag their parents to get them that product. Almost 1/3 of customers at the Chuckie Cheese chain, the survey said, only brought their children because of the nagging factor.

The problem with corporations performing these actions is that there is no moral standard for them to be held to. A corporation, in legal terms, is a person. A person with the same rights as every other citizen, with the sole obligation of making as much money for their creditors, shareholders, and employees. With no moral requirements to keep the health and obesity rates of America's children in mind, a corporation legally can continue gearing advertising towards children at a young age, when they're too mentally underdeveloped to have counter-thoughts or an objective view of their own.

After hearing this information, I immediately thought back to specific scenes from Supersize Me. The way countless restaurants wouldn't have nutritional information available, the way that each employee would have to offer a super sized meal, the set-up design of play-pens for children in multiple restaurants; these are all things that McDonald's could afford to do with no legal ramifications. Having grown up in an age in which advertising is reaching an all time peak, the combination of these two films significantly concerned me as to the amount of corporate influence our future generations will be exposed to. I can't say that I have any type of proposal or solution to these overwhelming problems; this seems to be an issue that will require generations to resolve. It's indisputably a captivating issue, however, and one that wouldn't have come to mind had it not been for these two documentaries.