Fast Food Advertising: The Reason for Obesity?

Hypothesis:

 Obesity in America is something that society struggles with. More and more people are becoming overweight and obese. I personally believe that obesity is an issue that must be taken care of. The root of the problem is that the advertisements we encounter every day for fast food impacts Americans. I believe that we do not realize what an impact it has on us, and I hope to find that the audience thinks that fast food advertising contributes to why Americans are obese.

Context:

My target audience was people ages 15 through 18. I chose this age group, because I feel that by age 15 they know more about advertisements and propaganda, versus a 6 year old. From my pilot testing I learned that I needed to have more yes and no questions, multiple-choice questions and less open-ended questions. On the questionnaire I found out that I repeated one question and left one question out. Even though I repeated a question they did stay consistent with their answer when asked again. I did not include one question, which would have helped me with collecting my data, but none of my questions were biased. My results are reliable because on my final survey all of my questions were on the questionnaire.

Results:

Demographic	Question	Question
14-18Year olds	1. Do you think that obesity is a problem in America? If so, please explain why.	2. On a scale of 1-10, how prevalent is obesity in America? (1= not a lot 10= wide spread)
Answer:	26 out of 28 said yes. The respondents usually said that people are eating too much fast food and that people were lazy.	5-3votes 6-4votes 7-3votes 8-5votes 9-2votes 10-11 votes
	3. Do you think that advertisements for fast food are effective? Do you tend to be easily persuaded?	4. Are you exposed to fast food advertisements on a daily basis? If so, how many do you think you are exposed to per day?
Answer:	Fast food advertisements effectiveness- yes-27 votes   Easily persuaded- yes- 24	Most respondents said they encounter at least 5 advertisements per day up to more than 100.
	5. How many times a week do you go out for fast food?	6. Have you ever received fast food coupons in the mail? If so, have you ever used them?
Answer:	0-1   11 38% 1-3   10 34% 3-4   3 10% 4-5   1 3% 5-6   3 10% 6-7   1 3%	24 respondents said that they have received fast food coupons in the mail, but 10 respondents said that they did not use them.
	7. If there were less commercials and advertisements, do you think that the obesity rate would go down?	8. Are you aware of fast food make up artists?
Answer:	Yes- 12   No-16	Yes   12 43% No   16 57%
	9. Do you think that false advertising contributes to obesity in America?	10. Do you think that fast food companies should advertise what the actual product looks like? Why or why not?
Answer	Yes- 23   No- 5	Yes-25 No- 3   Most respondents said yes, because people should have the right to know what they are actually buying.

Data Analysis:

 When reviewing my data collection to see if fast food advertising causes obesity, I was pleased with my results. Starting with question two, the question asked the respondents to answer on a scale of 1-10, how prevalent is obesity in America? (1= not a lot 10= wide spread.) I was able to see that the majority of the respondents rated obesity as a ten. This was very helpful to me because I was able to get a feel for where they stand on this problem. Research shows that the obesity rate has been steadily rising over the course of years. One statistic from heart.org (The American Heart Association) showed that in 1999-2002 16 percent of 12-19 year olds were obese. From 2005-2008 the obesity rate went up to 17.9 percent. Question five asked the respondents how many times a week they went out for fast food. The majority of the respondents said that they went out at 0-1 times a week; the next majority said 1-3 times a week 3-4 and 5-6 had the next most votes and lastly 4-5 and 6-7 had the least amount of votes. I found out that the average person goes out for fast food at least once a week, from statisticbrain.com. The next most frequent was twice a week, and then three or more times a week and lastly seven times a week. Since the respondent’s most frequent vote was about once per week and the statisticbrain.com had a most frequent as once a week, they resemble each other. This shows that their statistics are like the ones I found.  Also this helps me see the connection of obesity to how many times a week a person eats out for fast food. Question four asked are you exposed to fast food advertisements on a daily basis? If so, how many do you think you are exposed to per day? The respondents answered anywhere from 5 to 100 or more per day. Knowing that the respondents knew that they encounter fast food advertisements was very helpful to me. This was helpful to know because this allows me to get a better understanding on how aware they are in their everyday lives. The people who pay more attention to detail may be less vulnerable to these kinds of advertisements, because they pay close to detail and analyze things. The website fastfoodmarketing.org says that the average preschooler (2-5 years) saw 2.8 TV ads per day for fast food; children (6-11 years) saw 3.5; and teens (12-17 years) saw 4.7. Since the age group I questioned were 14-18 year olds, most of them were very close to the correct answer of 4.7 ads per day. This does not even include the online website advertising, it is safe to say that the average teen faces at least 5 fast food advertisements per day.

Conclusion:

The data I have collected does support my hypothesis. I was pleased to see that the respondents thought that obesity was a problem. I also was pleased to see that most of my respondents thought that fast food advertising was effective. Since my research is on how fast food advertising causes obesity, it was good to know that most of the respondents agreed. Also, on question eight I asked if they were aware of fast food makeup artists, and I was surprised to see that more than half of the respondents were not aware of fast food makeup artists. I was expecting that mostly all of the respondents would be aware of fast food makeup artists. From my data I can conclude that fast food adverting does contribute to obesity.

Follow Up:

 After considering the results from my questionnaire, I have decided to take my research into more depth. I would like to research how our brain works with giving into fast food advertisements. I would like to also like to get people more aware of what goes into the fast food, to help them make their decision of eating less fast food. I do not just want them to be aware of the false advertising, but what is actually in the products.