Advertising and Consumerism in the Food Industry

The eating habits of society as a whole have drastically changed over the last few decades. The influx of technology, advertising, images in the media and changes within modern cultural and family values play a big role in the psychological evolution of consumers in the food service industry. My goal is to discover how the images in advertisements and media influence our desire to purchase food and alter our perception on what makes food appealing. In this thesis paper, I will start off with an introduction of how consumerism has changed since the use of advertisements first began. I will reflect on the “traditional” value of food in comparison to the modernized concept of food, and introduce the emergence of fad foods and food trends in society. This introduction will allow me to further branch out into the topics of the psychological role in consumerism, as well as the roles of gender, socio-economic identity, cultural identity, and later on in the paper, the portrayal of health and beauty in the media. Next, I will begin to analyze my sources to support my thesis. I will use scholarly articles, essays, statistics from scientific studies, and other reliable sources for analyzing information, and will elaborate on the main ideas to further solidify my argument. Each source will play a key role in providing the data necessary for me to create graphs and charts, if possible, to organize the information. I will also try to find graphs and charts in other sources as references. My conclusion will focus on how our food choices have been negatively impacted by external sources, such as the media, and provide possible solutions for the problem.