A Large Amount of Advertisements Nowadays Are Now Targeted

Lilie King
Written by Lilie

7.5 in Academic Writing

June 20, 2021

A large amount of advertisements nowadays are now targeted at children. Many people say this has negative effects on children and should therefore be banned. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Nowadays a large amount of advertising aimed at children should be banned because of the negative effects. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

(These are reported IELTS Writing Task 2 Questions. The sample essay below is an answer to the second question above.)

Sample Essay

Some people feel that a large proportion of advertising that targets children should be prohibited, due to the negative impacts. I completely agree with this point of view because otherwise children may become unhealthy and have poor relationships with their parents.

Promoting unhealthy foods to children may lead them to develop health problems. Take snack advertisements, for example. They use kids’ favorite cartoon characters and special effects to make the products look good. As a result, young children may very likely crave them after watching the advertisements. As they eat more and more snacks, they may become obese and prone to health problems such as diabetes later in life because these foods are generally high in fat, sugar and calories. Since many children do not have the ability to control their cravings, marketing unhealthy foods to them should be banned to prevent them from consuming too many.

In addition, advertising branded products to children can have a negative influence on the parent-child relationship. For example, if children see some cool Nike backpacks in commercials, they may want one and ask their parents to buy it for them. However, their parents may not be doing well financially and thus refuse their request, which would lead to arguments. That is to say, if advertisements for designer goods targeted at children are not banned, they may ask their parents to purchase things that they cannot afford every single day, which could cause constant arguing and eventually bad relationships.

In conclusion, much advertising to children should not be allowed because it is detrimental both to their health and to their relationships with their parents.

270 Words

How to Vary Your Language

Advertising aimed at children
  • Advertising that targets children
  • Advertising targeted at children
  • Advertising (something) to children
  • Marketing (something) to children
  • Promoting something to children
Banned
  • prohibited
  • not allowed
  • be made illegal
  • be outlawed
“Illegal” and “outlawed” do not mean exactly the same as ‘banned’:
  • banned = against the law or other regulations
  • illegal/outlawed = against the law

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