Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[ClarissaMach]

Could you teachers please revise this text? Thanks in advance.


Theme: Today, the high sales of popular consumer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the real needs of the society in which they are sold.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

(Taken from CAE).


I agree with the idea that the high sales of popular consumer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the real needs of the society in which they are sold.

A very simple but evident example are the rising levels of obesity that became a common denominator in most of the richest nations (which are the most exposed to advertisements).

Obesity - disease of excess body fat, characterized by a body mass index equal or over 30 - can be caused by a range of reasons, but basically it is related to an unbalance between the amount of energy we absorb (through food intake) and the amount of energy we spend.

Why are people consuming much more energy than they really need? I strongly believe that one of the reasons is an excess of ads concerning products with high taxes of fat and/or sugar (though poor in terms of nutrients).

People consume a lot of products they should not not because they need, but because they were convinced they should do so. This is surely the case with soft drinks, for instance.

Another illustrative example: the number of people devoting much of their income in order to buy expansive cars. A lot of people insist on having a car even when half of their income is spent on affording it.

I have young friends that, despite living in neighborhoods close to subway stations or well served in terms of bus service, or close enough to their offices that they could walk or ride a bike to work, spend a large part of their wages paying off installment debts to buy a car.

I am convinced that many of them have not given a second thought to the fact that having a car involves lots of costs � taxes, insurance coverage, gasoline and parking soaring prices � and if they had rationally analyzed the cost benefit ratio of it, the idea of having a car would no longer seem attractive.

Why they behave like this? I think most of them probably have been seduced by car's advertisement � since they were kids, ads conveyed the idea that they would be no one if they could not buy the latest car model.

These examples show the strong influence that advertisement can have over the consumer habits of societies, proving it true that advertising � rather than real needs � is the the main factor behind the high sales of some consumer goods.
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Stormy Weather.

[Lorikeet]

I gave it a try, Clarissa, but as you can see, my efforts at strikethrough text using BBcode didn't work. So anything that is surrounded by [s]...[/s] means delete it. Ask if you have any questions.

[ClarissaMach]

Thanks, Lorikeet!

I myself am amazed at some of the errors I've made! It is been a while since the last time I wrote a text in English.
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Stormy Weather.

[Lorikeet]

I thought it was done well.