by Pam Nelson

Created on: June 07, 2009

Combining children and marketing immediately sends bad connotations through ones mind; marketing by nature is a form of manipulation to achieve the goal of the profiteer. Now combine marketing and food and the target is a child. It does not even sit well to say it in a sentence. The goal of any fast food chain is to sell a product and to make money; how else could they stay in business? A marketing firm's job is to make it appealing to entice you to buy the product; that is their job. A child may find something appealing and make a request, but it is ultimately for the parents to decide. It is a cop-out to blame the company or the marketer. If you didn't buy IT, IT would not be available and the company would find an alternative.

Fast food was designed to satisfy the immediate need. It is not to provide thoughtful choice, the endless battle of quality and time. The lifestyle of most families today are very fast paced with a lot of time spent going from place to place and the meal getting lost in the shuffle. Making the shuffle work is challenging and the ease of fast food is appealing. Making your child happy with a food choice can also be difficult. Most parents know the challenges of trying to get a child to eat something they aren't especially fond of. Nutritious choices are, commonly, a learned appetite. In other words, a child will never request a bowl of broccoli over an order of french fries. Parents provide the knowledge behind their child's choices and children require guidance in their selections.

Whether marketing and fast food markets get on the bandwagon of less harmful choices is not the point. By its nature, food, in a processed form, is not quality and therefore is suspect for nutrition. No one should be using fast food with the thought of it as a nutritional choice. Besides calories, cholesterol and excessive salt, the processing alone strips nutrition. The norm is to add chemicals to stabilize and enhance color in processed foods because mushy and gray food would be very unappealing.

Everything in moderation is fine. A hot-dog or a burger on occasion is not going to hurt anyone; it's a treat. What hurts children is the ritual habit of avoiding the balance. If a child's diet is their choice of pizza or a hoagie sandwich tonight and two days later it is a cheeseburger or a taco; the fundamental issue is when is the choice made for quality? This has become a nation of easy and right now. All companies will strive to create products to sell and marketers will position them as attractive. The parent has the choice. Do not blame others for poor choices. Let treats be just that: treats.

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