Lesson Plan - Are Junk Food Ads Targeting You?

Engage and Build Vocabulary

Ask students to respond to this prompt: What’s an advertisement you remember seeing recently? What was it selling? What made the ad memorable? Discuss responses. Then use the Skill Builder Words to Know to preteach the domain-specific terms bombard, nonprofit, subliminal, impressionable, libertarian, censorship, and behavioral science.

Read the Article

Read the article aloud or have students read it independently. As students read, direct them to underline or highlight details about how food and drink companies try to get kids to buy their products.

Answer Close-Reading Questions

Have students write their responses or use the Close-Reading Questions to guide a discussion.

• Summarize the experiment that is described in the first section of the article. (Summarizing)
The nonprofit Bite Back 2030 filmed an experiment to see how ads affect young people. They bombarded eight teens with ads for “triple dipped chicken.” Then they invited them to a restaurant and asked them to pick an item from a menu with more than 50 choices. All the teens picked the “triple dipped chicken” without even realizing that it had been marketed to them.

• Why do food and beverage companies often target kids and teens with their ads? (Key Details)
Food and beverage companies often target kids and teens because they want to build brand loyalty. If young people start buying a product, they’re more likely to keep buying it later in life. Also, experts says that kids are more impressionable than adults and are easy to target with cell phones and social media.

• How does the sidebar “Selling With Cell Phones” support the article? (Text Features)
The sidebar helps explain how companies target young people by discussing three methods for reaching teens through their phones. Hashtag campaigns can help companies get free advertising, businesses can use apps to track users and send them notifications when they’re near a restaurant, and endorsements can encourage teens to buy the products their favorite stars are promoting.

Develop Media Literacy

Use the Skill Builder Analyze an Ad to guide students to analyze the purpose, audience, and persuasive techniques in an ad. You might provide a few ads for students to choose from or help them find their own.

Assess Comprehension

Use Quiz Wizard to assess students’ comprehension of this article and three others from the issue.