Advertising and Childhood Obesity

We were talking about advertising in class the other day and the negativity about some advertisements. There were the models that were made to look completely too thin, the advertisements that were sending a bad image and all of the others that we didn't have too much time to look at. Although the models do affect children and young teens, I think that fast food advertising is by far the worst and most effective, especially among the youth. Children have such spongey minds especially at such a young age that if Mcdonald's or any other fast food restaurant shows a toy advertised for their favorite television show or movie they will automatically want that toy. They will beg and beg and beg their parents for the toy, then the parents will get sick of the begging and just take them to get the happy meal with over 600 calories for them to eat and get awarded with a toy. Although many people do not think that the toy is an "award" if you think about it, it truly is, the toy is an incentive or a bribe to have when they finish their meal. They usually cannot have the toy until their meal is eaten and then are given the toy. Advertising companies use child psychologists to figure out exactly how to get into the children's head. Obviously the companies have the complete right to do so and I do not object to that, I am just more interested in the effect that it has on the youth and what our society will be in time with all of these children being so overweight with such horrible health problems at such a young age.