Severe psychiatric problems are also encountered in those who maintain what looks like a normal weight but who are continuously preoccupied with their appearance and dietary manipulations, a group referred to as “thin fat people. ” According to Adams et al (2000) others alternate between phases of rigid reducing followed by rapid weight increase, seemingly unable to stabilize at any weight; they may lose and gain a total of as much as 500 pounds during the adolescent years. (Adams, M. J. , Bereiter, C. , Carruthers, I. , Case, R. , Hirshberg, J. , McKeough, A. , et al. 2000)
There is probably no other group of people as concerned and preoccupied with their physique and appearance as adolescents, before and after pubescence. They are forever worried about their size, whether they are too tall or too short, about the adequacy of their sexual maturation, and about their attractiveness in general; but most of all they are preoccupied with their weight (Coleman, M. , & Vaughn, S. 2000). The fear of being too fat, or rated as such, parallels the weight consciousness of our society, which condemns even mild degrees of overweight as ugly, undesirable, and a sign of self-indulgence.
Formerly an exceedingly rare disorder, anorexia nervosa seems to be on the increase in Western countries, where slimness is experienced by adolescents as the only respected state. Advertisement can also be addressed as a major reason for obesity in USA. The numeral of children with obesity has radically amplified in current years, and this might in part be due to the influential nature of food advertising. Though, as the start of television advertising, the major percentage of advertisements meant at children has constantly been for food products (Young, 1990, 2003).
For this cause, marketers have pointed out that the percentage of food advertising is improbable to be the merely or the major issue in the current growth in obesity. Other transforms in lifestyle, such as need of exercise, increased use of cars, sedentary living including more time spent watching television and playing computer games, and diverse family eating habits (such as a dependency on convenience foods), might all be features in the increase in children’s weight (Lvovich, 2003).
Advertisers could as well point to the reality that people get information concerning nutrition through other sources such as school, institutions and must be awake of healthy eating practices. Several have argued that the preeminent way to market food is by stressing healthy eating and by comprising nutritional information that sets off other sources of that information (Strong, 1999).
Indeed, Reece, Rifon, and Rodriguez (1999) found that the majority cereal advertisements included nutritional information, but this typically consisted simply of statements that the food was part of a balanced breakfast or brief details of an explicit nutrient such as vitamin C. Other food advertisements were less probable to comprise nutritional information. The utilization of nutritional information can be viewed as either an optimistic addition to food advertisements or just a marketing strategy; it as well raises the matter of how well children recognize and understand such information.