While this advertisement presents Burger King’s food in a way that interesting and fun for kids, it fails to inform consumers of the detrimental immediate or long term effects it could have on their health. It’s clear not only through speculation, but study and experimentation that fast food can directly affect a person’s health in negative ways. During the Super Size Me documentary, Morgan Spurlock conducted an experiment in which he ate nothing but fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 30 days. Spurlock had various checkups with three different doctors throughout the experiment. The end results were more shocking than one might expect. In just 30 days’ time, Spurlock gained twenty four pounds, went up sixty-five points in cholesterol, and experienced a seven percent increase in body fat percentage. Over the 30 days Spurlock also experience depression, mood swings, nausea, constant cravings and headaches, and a noticeable decrease in his sex drive. At the end of the experiment, the doctors said that Spurlock had doubled his risk of coronary heart disease and damaged his liver in ways seen only in binge drinkers. Spurlock’s experiment showcases the potential immediate health effects of eating too much fast food, but the most common long-term effect is obesity. Obesity is a serious health risk, comparable to chain smoking or binge drinking. Being obese puts a person at risk of various diseases such as “hypertension, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and repertory problems, and endometrial, breast, prostate, and colon cancers.” (Elizabeth A. Siegler). Since Burger King is targeting children in their advertisements, information on the negative side effects of a fast food diet should be included in those ads.
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