Essay Questions

Explain the techniques identified by the author as being used to market fast food to children.

To appeal to children, fast food manufacturers and distributors appeal to the child's desire for fun and play. Ronald McDonald, the friendly clown, and the introduction of small play areas at McDonald's restaurants, are two examples of deliberate use of play imagery.

Food manufacturers market to parents by packaging items in child-sized, single servings so they can be included in a child's lunch. The Lunchables cheese and cracker packs are designed to be bought by parents and fed to children.

Loading cereals with extra sugar and fat to appeal to children's desire for sweet foods, running ads during children's television cartoons, and affiliating with other things children like such as superhero or Disney franchises are other ways fast food companies market to children.

The author relies on pathos to help the reader emphasize with some of the people interviewed in the book. Provide some examples of pathos and explain why it is effective.

The author describes the harsh working conditions for the undocumented immigrants who work in the slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. He describes their injuries. This elicits sympathy for the workers.

The author identifies poverty as a factor that influences people to buy unhealthy fast food. He shows how McDonald's is seen by many poor families as a safe, wholesome place where children can play, and illustrates how even in this day and age there are families that do not understand nutrition. This portrays unhealthy people in a sympathetic light by showing that they are not solely responsible for their dietary options.

The author references studies that show people prefer the foods they grow up with, and shows how children are being systematically targeted with heavy advertising and product placement even in schools. The technique is effective because human beings are usually protective of children, especially their own.

Advertising frequently relies on association between a product and something the target audience likes and wants. This can be regarded as a form of symbolism. What symbols are associated with fast food? Why are they effective advertising?

Ronald McDonald is a fictional character associated with the world's biggest franchise fast food operation. A clown designed to appeal to children, Ronald McDonald is effective because the character is friendly, non-threatening, and associated with fun and games. To a child, he symbolizes good times. The Ronald McDonald House, a children's charity devoted to providing accommodation to families of sick children, associates the character with a worthy cause.

Disney characters are used to sell everything from clothing to coloring books, and Schlosser describes the close relationship between Ray Kroc and Walt Disney. Disney characters are associated with excitement, adventure, fantasy, and child empowerment. When they appear on a fast food carton or beverage, children want to eat what's inside.

Describe some instances of irony in the book, and show how they support the author's argument that the fast food industry is bad.

The executives of fast food companies are wealthy, upper-middle-class people who typically buy fresh, organic foods and who seldom buy the products their companies produce or allow it to be served to their children. The fact that the people who are the most informed about the products are unwilling to eat them suggests that other people should avoid the products too.

Many poor people, despite not having reliable access to food, are obese due to their reliance on fast food. This is partly because most of the calories they consume come from fat, sugar, and highly refined starch. Exploiting poor people and deliberately providing poor nourishment to the hungry is generally regarded as an immoral thing to do.

The bulk of fast food advertising, with its sophisticated messages and its enticing products, is targeted not at the people who require a lot of effort to influence (educated adults) but at the people least likely to be able to resist it (children). Any threat to children tends to provoke a visceral reaction in human beings. People don't like child abusers, and when a wealthy, powerful company deliberately targets a child -- particularly the reader's child -- many readers get angry.