Social media provides a platform for fast food adverts to be spread out and encourage people to consume unhealthy food. Despite this, fast food adverts should not be banned as they are not the main reason as to why people purchase fast food. Other factors such as instilling responsibility and healthy food availability or pricing are more crucial in driving people to have healthier food.
Most people buy fast food since it is an easy and cheap alternative for people who value time or are short on budget, not because they are tempted by the advertisements. To illustrate, for someone who has to commute to work early in the morning, buying fast food for breakfast saves them a lot of time than having to prepare a healthy breakfast themselves. This is also because healthier alternatives are not easy to find and generally more expensive, leading people to prefer fast food.
Rather than banning fast food advertisements, it makes more sense to increase people’s awareness on healthy and unhealthy food. It is generally thought by our society that healthy food is hard to make and is expensive. However, with more widespread advertising of how fast foods are harmful and what healthy foods consist of such as having balanced meal, people will realize that healthy food does not have to be fancy and is actually not that hard to prepare. This will lead them to be more responsible towards their own diet, which forms a life-long habit.
Overall, banning fast food advertisements Is not an effective solution to mitigating an unhealthy population. There are more important factors that lead people to buy fast food and they should be addressed first.