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Writing

April 10,2020

The Negative Effect of Advertising to Adolescents

According to data from a study conducted by Psychology Today, children ages 8 to 18

watch on average 40,000 commercials a year. This number only represents a small amount of the

advertisements children usually see, they all see ads on billboards, in magazines, and on the

internet. When children see so many advertisements it can lead to developing negative habits.

Advertising unhealthy foods leads to developing negative habits of children eating too

much unhealthy food. When children see these ads for unhealthy food it makes them want to go

out and eat it. They advertise about how delicious the food is and how everyone loves and needs

to try it. After this, they will always want to eat whatever the food is, this will turn into an awful

habit of snacking. According to the American Psychological Association, “Children’s exposure

to TV ads for unhealthy food products (i.e., high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks, fast foods and

sweetened drinks) are a significant risk factor for obesity.” They are saying that the more ads that

children watch about junk food, the more they have a craving for it. These ads come with more

negatives than just obesity, it can also lead to diabetes and sometimes even cancer.

Tobacco advertisement can lead to adolescents developing negative habits. Advertisers

often advertise in movies, commercials, and billboards. In movies, there are so many characters
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in movies and t.v shows that smoke and drink, and that makes children think that it's something

that is really cool and fun.

When children are young, they don’t exactly have the capacity to realize that an ad is

trying to get them to buy their product, so they end up believing what the ads tell them about

tobacco.

Smoking is a negative habit because it can lead to many illnesses that could kill you.

When you are smoking your lungs start wither and get weaker and weaker, that could then lead

to a lot of coughing, asthma, and getting colds. Sources like nhs.uk say that “The biggest effect

that smoking could bring is lung cancer, pneumonia, and emphysema.” Smoking can also lead to

addiction, people get dependent on it and start to not be able to live without it. “Smoking

inflames and irritates the lungs. Even one or two cigarettes cause irritation and coughing.

Smoking also can destroy your lungs and lung tissue. This decreases the number of air spaces

and blood vessels in the lungs, resulting in less oxygen to critical parts of your body.” This can

bring a lot of trouble into someone's life because there are so many places where they would not

be able to smoke. On planes people are not able to smoke on the aircraft, flights would be

unbearable for people so they would just choose not to go.

As for alcohol, it’s a lot easier to have in places than cigarettes, but alcohol makes people

do crazy things that they will probably end up regretting and things that could get them in

trouble. Alcohol is also something that can be addicting, people depend on it to help keep them
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happy or just to forget about the troubles happening around them. According to the health

department in Australia, “Alcohol can affect your child's brain which continues to develop until

their early twenties.” They also say that alcohol brings children slurred speech, confusion, poor

vision, poor muscle control and judgment, slow reactions, lack of coordination, sleep disruption,

and also negatively affects their problem solving skills.

Advertising clothing to children can also bring negative effects to them. When children

see these perfect models in ads, they can start to compare themselves to them, think about how

much prettier they are than them and just bring themselves down and start to get this negative

way of looking at themselves.

According to Adolescence, “Physical attractiveness is something that is really important

to children.” When these children have to see all these gorgeous people it really starts to affect

the way they see themselves and their self-esteem. They will compare, and think “oh I really not

pretty,” and “Oh I need to lose weight to look like this.” That will start to really sink into them

and make themselves just believe that they are not good enough. These advertisements are not

being realistic to what most people around the world really look like, and that can really affect

people and how they look at themselves.

So many advertisements come with negative effects that hurt adolescence. It makes them

feel like they need this or that, like they're not good enough, and make them want to try things
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that they will end up regretting in the future and will affect them for their whole lives. Children

are not old enough or smart enough to really see what the ads intentions are for them, which can

make them make the wrong decisions. A solution to this could be watching over the kind of ads

that the government lets out on the media, newspapers, television, and billboards. They could

also talk about the effects that these products could have on anyone so that they are at least

informed. For the clothing advertisements, they could start to have more realistics images that

appear on their ads so people know that it's not just these models that have the “perfect” look.

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Kelly, Kathleen J., and Ruth W. Edwards. “Image Advertisements for Alcohol Products: Is
There Appeal Associated with Adolescents' Intention to Consume Alcohol.” Adolescence, vol.
33, no. 129, 1998, doi:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p1649.

Lapierre, Matthew A., et al. “The Effect of Advertising on Children and Adolescents.” American
Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics, 1 Nov. 2017,
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/Supplement_2/S152.
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Oates, Caroline, et al. Advertising to Children on TV Content, Impact, and Regulation. Taylor
and Francis, 2005.

Tsai, Chia-chang, and Chiah-Hsiang Chang. “The Effect of Physical Attractiveness of Models on
Advertising Effectiveness for Male and Female Adolescents.” Adolescence, vol. 42, no. 168,
2007, doi:10.1002/ejsp.2098.

“The Impact of Food Advertising on Childhood Obesity.” American Psychological Association,

American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/topics/kids-media/food.

“Alcohol and the Developing Brain.” Alcohol and the Developing Brain, 8 Mar. 2013,

healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/F_I/Information-for-parents-alcohol-and-the-developing-brain.

“How Smoking Affects Your Body.” NHS Choices, NHS,

www.nhs.uk/smokefree/why-quit/smoking-health-problems.