Impact Of Fast Food On Child Obesity: Leadership And Management Strategies Essay.

1. Discuss the impact and implication of those topics/questions/issues to an industry that you are familiar with OR plan to be working in.

2. Explain your approach (how you intent to practice) to leadership as a result of completing this subject. What does Discuss mean?

Learning from DAA Forum

Last month I and few of my college colleagues who were enrolled in course for management and leadership subjects got a chance to visit a discussion forum of dietetic and nutritional professionals hosted by Dietitians Association of Australia. DAA is professional body that represents members within nutrition profession who held talks and sessions to motivate and make society people aware on health, diet and choices of food. These representatives speak on various subjects or questions that advocates building a strong and healthier society (DDA 2018). During one of such discussion forums that I and my colleagues attended, the members of DAA delivered talks surrounding the research and issues based on evidenced information specifically focusing on fast food, impacts of fast food nutritional value and consumption over local and national people. They also talked about issues that are faced by industry of fast food based on nutrition and implication on health of consumers.

In this event I got to learn different facts and issues that are critical to fast food and nutrition and with my experience from talks that I heard I realized that childhood obesity has been the critical and serious public health issues that revolves around fast food industry. I found that members of DAA indicated that such obese children eventually grow into overweight adults who are vulnerable to serious health issues like diabetes, cardiac issues etc and these health issues drive strong burden on Australian health systems and economy (Chen, Goto, Wolff & Zhao 2015).

I realized from the discussions that a strong management and leadership focus is needed to drive the awareness in public for better response to fast food health issues and management. Particularly, limiting to policies that encourage healthy eating habits among public is not enough and more needs to be done for better control of issues. I felt the need was more to educate people on issues that are posed by fast food consumption when done in uncontrolled manner so I felt that more health awareness campaigns need to be conducted specially in schools, colleges and public events so that parents of children can be educated on ways to balance the diet of their kids to give them proper nutrition as well as guidance to chose their food. Along with this I felt awareness camps like fun events can be hosted in schools where kids get to learn the issues of overconsumption of fast food so that they could deal with challenge to eat healthy food.  

As issue of child obesity is grave particularly driven by unbalanced fast food eating habits so I found that issue not just only surrounds children, parents and policymakers infact it is a social issue, so as per my understanding a more focused approach needs to made to inspire healthy eating choices, specifically when the market is bombarded by abundance of junk foods so eating healthy is a challenge. I felt that this issue is aggravated by unresponsive advertising that impacts behavior in context to food selections and consumptions habits, so I feel that policymakers need to take vital governance steps to limit advertisement of fast food, specifically that are targeted at children.  

Childhood obesity as a critical public health issue

According to my theoretical understanding on advertising and their influence on behavior of people, I think these can be categorized into two forms. The first being that advertisement is considered at micro level where these target consumers to persuade or manipulate their behavior and advertisement been considered as persuasive. This means that advertisement is considered as means that develops visual imaginations among consumers and these shapes their consciousness and attitude subtly by driving thought of purchase or decisions (Dhar & Sharma 2014).  The second form is where advertisements take a social perspective and focus on economic and cultural power that is in control of large mass media enterprise and individuals where emphasis is not on communication of clear product information but is more on social or symbolic usage of these products (Mathur & Patodiya 2016).  As such I can sense from my understanding that in consumer focused community people are convinced by gratification from consumption as reflected through some advertisements that create implication on associating a product with prestige and life style identity or pleasure.   

From my earlier experiences I can say that implication of advertisement is more based on expected interest of readers and influence on advertisements targeted consumers as serious ads are not always supportive by media partners. This means that advertisements that make people analyze and think are not encouraged either by viewers or media partners and both of them anticipate for fantasy or interesting ads that promote products. As such the current issue of unbalanced fast food consumption habits specifically in children is outcome of ads that attract consumers to buy and not think (Odobasa 2017). As per my understanding this issue relates to management and leadership situation where an effective leadership intervention can be taken to promote balanced eating and responsive consumption of fast food among children and parents.  According to Soni & Vohra (2014) many awareness camps can be set up to make people educated and decide on what they consume along with children participating in such events.  Also the need is to demonstrate a robust policy intervention leadership approach specifically limiting on advertisers who target children so that they could promote fast food as part of balanced diet and not a complete meal in itself. Advertisers specifically can be educated and motivated to act responsibly without or limited   government intervention so that they can be entrusted to target children not to over consume fast food and learn to balance their food choices.  Moreover from my understanding of leadership and management theories I can say that parents also need to get realization not to encourage pester power and support constant demands of their kids for specific items like fast food. Instead they can guide children to decide effectively on food choices and simultaneously encourage sporting activities so that kids and parents can engage constructively and spend time that can eventually lead kids to learn to control urge that makes them overeat fast food and deal with related issues.     

As stated by Popovich (2017) child obesity which is a vital issue of fast food industry and a concern for health and well being factor of growing citizens of future has emerged due to direct relationship of advertising influences and responsive management and leadership of advertisers with practices they indulge to actually persuade consumers. The factors that have prompted issue of child obesity is because advertisers mostly expose the consumption of fast food as a symbol of lifestyle and indulge in advertising initiatives that are not thoughtful or responsive to society as they mostly focus on persuasive approach to drive sales and stimulate more of purchase of fast food products. Also according to Schwartz, Kunkel & DeLucia (2013) practically most advertisers do not convey the right information on these products and make their adverts fascinating to appeal children interests. Also these are further elevated with inappropriate management and decisions taken by parents for their kids particularly affected by factors of more disposable income, small family size, which makes parents purchase things that their children consistently demand. A combination of these along with focus of advertisers to market their fast food items to children are driven to encourage pestering or persist nagging that makes children plea their parents for buying of these items.  In my understanding this kind of approach is not effective either for advertisers or parents specifically parents should focus on importance nagging that reflects more reasonable demands for something that are essential for education or sports activities or for general well being. I think importance nagging can be used by parents to deal efficaciously with managing their kid’s desires for fast food so as to give them a sense of balanced diet and make fast food as part of routine and not a part of necessary nutritional diet. So both advertisers and parents need to demonstrate responsive management to tackle issue of fast food that is alarming children’s health and decisions for consumption should be led with more rational (Carrete, Arroyo & Villaseñor 2017).

The need for more health awareness campaigns

This situation of child obesity as a concern for fast food industry has emerged because of unresponsive advertising and marketing practices where most of the companies encourage pester power as enabler for their business growth. As such many marketers design approaches that target children and influence their behavior completely making them consistently demand for fast food consumption whenever they are or without their parents. These pester power practice makes children get what they desire from their parents which shows unresponsive approach to marketing and management (Gortmaker et al. 2015). My rationale for this issue is supported by role theory where people (here advertisers and parents) determine role for themselves and others (children) based on social influences. According to Langner, Hennigs & Wiedmann (2013) in case of advertisers the role is described by stimulating expectations or behavior in target consumers i.e. children that subtly encourages consistent demand and urge for fast food items as they are visually imaged as good and part of lifestyle that makes children get heavily attracted to these items and act in a behavior as is expected from advertisers with role of demanding more purchase of these items and nagging parents for these.  On other hand, for parents the role theory stimulates their behavior which is defined by making them act as parents who attempt to fulfill each of their children’s demand to give best for them and as such they are subtly encouraged to act by not saying no to fast food demand of their kids and giving in to their incessant demands to not be a bad parent image. So in my opinion parents and advertisers can deal with issue by being more aware and informed of their choices and decisions as they impact well being of future citizens, so for future improvements strategic plans can be made to handle demands more responsively in case of parents while for advertisers they can chose to act responsively to social issues and not indulge in things for profits, which should be governed with tight policy frameworks to be adopted in case when they target children consumes (Mathur & Patodiya 2016). In my opinion both parents and marketers have a role to lead and manage their response for children by developing approaches that involves educating them to interpret what things to buy and how often so that they can learn to balance under proper guidance.

References 

Carrete, L., Arroyo, P., & Villaseñor, R. (2017). A socioecological view toward an understanding of how to prevent overweight in children. The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 34(2), 156-168. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1873332835?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Chen, Q., Goto, K., Wolff, C., & Zhao, Y. (2015). Relationships between children's exposure to ethnic produce and their dietary behaviors. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 17(2), 383-388. Retrieved from:  doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10903-014-0036-5  [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

DDA (2018). Leadership in dietetics. Retrieved from:  https://daa.asn.au/about-daa/ [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Dhar, S., & Sharma, P. K. (2014). Catalytic effect of TV advertisements on children. Johar, 9(2) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1733209714?accountid=30552[Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Gortmaker, S. L., Wang, Y. C., Long, M. W., Giles, C. M., Ward, Z. J., Barrett, J. L., . . . Cradock, A. L. (2015). Three interventions that reduce childhood obesity are projected to save more than they cost to implement. Health Affairs, 34(11), 1932-65A. Retrieved from: doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0631    [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Langner, S., Hennigs, N., & Wiedmann, K. (2013). Social persuasion: Targeting social identities through social influencers. The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 30(1), 31-49. Retrieved from: doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/07363761311290821 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Mathur, S., & Patodiya, P. K. (2016). GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE OF FAST FOOD CONSUMPTION: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW. Indian Journal of Management Science, 6(2), 46-52. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1854226435?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Odobasa, R. (2017). GLOBALIZATION, GLOBAL TRANSITION OF DIETARY PATTERNS AND OBESITY PANDEMIC. Paper presented at the 911-922. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2070396355?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Popovich, D. (2017). Behavioral and lifestyle influences on reported calorie intake: A latent class model. The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 34(3), 214-225. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1899341592?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Schwartz, M. B., Kunkel, D., & DeLucia, S. (2013). Food marketing to youth: Pervasive, powerful, and pernicious. Communication Research Trends, 32(2), 4-13. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1416174988?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]

Soni, P., & Vohra, J. (2014). Targeting the young food consumer. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 32(5), 630-645. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1651529825?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]