Exemplification Essay - Rough Draft

Jessica Davis


                Advertising is all around us. Our days are filled with a constant bombardment of commercials and advertisements; they are plastered all over the boxes of cereal we eat our breakfast from, blaring from our car radios during the morning commute, popping up viciously all over our computers, staring down at us from billboards on the way home, and interrupting our TV shows as we try to unwind from a long day of being commercial targets. Whether we realize it or not, we are so frequently exposed to advertisements that their affects begin to get ingrained into our brains and shape our behavior, habits, and desires. Unfortunately, advertisers have abused this power and continue to purposefully create commercials that influence us towards unhealthy choices. Advertising’s negative effects can be detrimental to consumer health by conditioning people in favor of addictive habits, creating unrealistic body expectations, and influencing people, especially children, to crave unhealthy foods.

                Addictive products are often advertised in ways that make them seem appealing. Many alcohol commercials show people drinking socially at fun outdoor events that appeal to teenagers. Another type of alcohol commercial features “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” a classy and sophisticated Dos Equis drinker who lives an exciting and glamorous life full of beautiful women and beer. Most adults already have established drinking habits, so these commercials serve largely to attract new young drinkers. In fact, alcohol drinkers are now starting their habits at a younger age than ever before. According to the study Trends and Underage Drinking in the United States, most underage drinkers now begin at age fourteen, down from almost eighteen in the 1960’s (News-Adeyi, G.; Chen, C.M.; Williams, G.D.; and Faden V.B. 7-8). Though TV and radio ads for cigarettes were banned in the U.S. in 1970 by the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, people are still faced with cigarette advertisements every time they pass a gas station or convenience store with windows and counters plastered with cigarette signs. Because few adults randomly take up smoking, cigarette advertising is aimed towards making children and teens become a generation of new customers.

                Advertising can have a dangerous effect on consumer’s self-imageand self-esteem by creating false images that perpetuate unrealistic body expectations. It is rare to find an advertisement with a model that has not been at least slightly airbrushed and altered. These digitally enhanced images usually remove every imperfection from a model’s body, and sometimes even remove normal features like collarbones, muscle contours, and curves around female hips. Frequently, images are so drastically altered that they show body proportions that are almost impossible, and certainly unhealthy, to obtain. The multi-national clothing chain H&M was recently criticized for taking digital model enhancement to the next level by photoshopping the heads of actual models onto computer generated bodies. Models are unrealistic even before the computer editing. In fact, the average female American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 lbs. whereas the average American woman is only 5’4” and weighs in at 140 lbs. Young women and girls are especially susceptible to the detrimental effects of these false body images, and often fall victim to conditions like bulimia and anorexia as they struggle to make their bodies look like the bodies of models that aren’t even real.

                Perhaps the most severe negative health influence stemming from advertising is on our diets. Once again, children are the most susceptible to this. Kids’ TV programming is full of commercials for sugary junk foods and highly processed fatty snacks. Even healthy foods are repackaged into “fun” and convenient on-the-go forms. For example, instead of eating a healthy apple, consumers have the option of buying pre-sliced apples which come with caramel dip. Supermarket breakfast cereal aisles constantly have the plainly packaged healthy cereals up high, and the sugary cereals down low at children’s eye level, plastered with fun and colorful characters and mascots, easily recognizable from their commercials. Brand recognition is a powerful influence over eating habits. Fast food franchises like McDonald’s offer the comfort of familiar food in a quick, easy, and affordable manner, while at the same time tempting children with toys and playspaces. In his study, “Review of Research on the Effects of Food Promotion to Children,” Professor Gerard Hastings states that advertising influences children towards a diet that is less healthy than the recommended one, and that advertising influences children’s’ preferences regarding what they will consume (3-4). Furthermore, food products are often misleadingly labeled to make them sound healthy. Empty terms like “new,” “improved,” and “lite,” are thrown around constantly with little meaning behind them.  William Lutz describes these in an excerpt from his book, Doublespeak, titled “With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything,” as weasel words. “…Examine weasel words closely and you’ll find that they’re as hollow as any egg sucked by a weasel” (1).

                Advertising is so much more than just selling a product. Marketers strive to change society’s opinions, habits, and preferences, and to affect each and every person on such an extreme level that new habits and beliefs get ingrained deeply in us from childhood. These subliminal influences have led to a cultural acceptance of addictive substances, harmful ideas of body image, and poor eating habits. In an essay titled “The Language of Advertising,” the author explains the importance of being informed consumers. We are not required to buy products just because we are surrounded by their commercials, but we should be aware of the effect that they have on us. We must pay attention and do our own thinking, instead of mindlessly trusting advertisements (O’Neill). Most importantly, we must be aware of the harmful effects of advertising on our health, so that we are prepared to avoid them. While advertising may be extremely useful for companies to sell their products and create vast legions of loyal consumers, it is dangerous to the well-being of society as a whole.