Negative Effects of Advertising on American Youth - Essay Example

One of the ways through which companies use technology is through advertising and marketing. Through this, companies communicate with consumers, mainly creating awareness about their new products, or promoting their companies, for increased profitability. Marketing and advertising benefits the company the most, since this promotes company products, hence more sales for the company. On the other hand, consumers too benefit from marketing and advertising, as this makes them aware of the products in the market by different companies, thus are able to make their purchasing decision, after comparing various products in the market.

However, advertising and marketing is also known to have negative influences on the target population for which the adverts are aimed. Marketing and advertising has negative effects on the youth in America, and these include eating disorders and obesity, body dissatisfaction, violence, and consumerism. Commercial broadcasting is highly used by different companies today. The television is the most known for airing most commercials advertisements today. This is probably because more people have access to the television; therefore, companies can reach a larger number of people through the television.

On the other hand, print magazines are also a channel for advertisements, which is used by different companies. Most youth, especially the females, are highly attracted to fashion magazines, which are available and produced by various companies. Similarly, outdoor advertising, which involves different outdoor activities planned by a company, are mainly aimed at promoting the company and its products. Other forms of outdoor advertising include transit posters, bus adverts, bench advertising, and highway billboards, which communicate various messages from a company to the public.

Nonetheless, apart from promoting and boosting company sales, these different forms of advertising have negative effects on the youth in America. Advertisements and the approach used therein are considered to brainwash most people and affect the perspective of people on morals and self-image (Harper, Brit and Tiggemann 645). In the United States, there is the right to freedom of speech for advertisers, and this could probably be the reason why these sometimes ignore the negative implications of most of their advertisements.

With regard to body dissatisfaction, most youth in America are influenced by the body images in various advertisements, and therefore, think of those as the ideal body images (Hargreaves and Tiggemann 469). In television advertisements for beauty products for both male and females, model women and men are used. In the past, women models were portrayed as plumb and healthy, however, today, models are portrayed as skinny (Sparks 217). On the other hand, male models on television advertisements today are portrayed as men with steroidal masses, with muscles, and great strength.

According to Hargreaves and Tiggemann, the exposure to the model body images in television advertisements has a negative impact on the perceptions of the youth about their bodies (470). These might therefore, look for ways of attaining the “ideal” body, as portrayed in television advertisements. The second negative effect of advertisements to the youth in America is obesity and eating disorders. Obesity is a growing problem in the United States today. This problem affects the youth also, and this is highly attributed to the massive advertisements shown on the television and other advertising platforms, promoting fast food.

Obesity is lethal, since this could lead to type 2 diabetes. The main factor promoting this in the United Sta