You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Some people think that the main influence on young people’s diet is advertising rather than family and friends. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer
With an emerging impact of advertisements, young people’s diet habit is a concerning issue as the number of overweight children is on the rise. While some people are convinced that adverts targeting the young residents to shape their preferences of food have higher influence than family and friends. I, however, disagree with this notion.
To begin with, we are living in a world where adverts are all around us and their influence on young generation is more severe than adults. Advertisements, especially those targets teenagers and related to food and beverage, spend a huge amount of money to allure them to a better living standard which are, most of the cases, lies. Consequently, young people are trapped and prefer fast food than home-made menus. For instance, a recent survey conducted on college students in my city revealed that they prefer pizza, subway sandwich and burger than the foods their mums prepare at home. Further studies explained that those students have little conscious of the balanced diet and are exposed to TV and online advertisements.
Having said that, family and friends have a greater influence on a teenager’s eating habit. A family has a greater role in shaping a child’s food intake habit and scientific studies prove that our diet habit is deeply rooted in the type of food we eat in our childhood. Thus, if a teenager has a bad eating habit, the family is to blame for that. On top of that, when a child starts making friends, he is significantly get influenced by his friends eating and drinking habit. To illustrate, based on a recent research published in the magazine ‘Healthy Living’, more than 70% school going teenagers try to mimic the diet habit of their friends who they spend time with. This statistics clearly reveal that our family members and friends have more influence on our choices of foods and drinks than the advertisements we are exposed to.
To conclude, food habit is a significant part of our life as it defines who we become and how healthy, both physically and psychologically, we would be in the future. Advertisements, to a certain extent, have an impact on young people’s diet, but family and friends have an even greater role.