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Georgia Childhood Obesity Ad

January 5, 2012 by · Comments Off on Georgia Childhood Obesity Ad 

Georgia Childhood Obesity AdGeorgia Childhood Obesity Ad, Some experts are saying a provocative Georgia ad campaign aimed at fighting childhood obesity is too blunt and will do more harm than good.

One of the black-and-white posters of a gloomy-looking overweight girl is emblazoned with the statement: “Warning. It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re fat.” Another ad, under a sad-faced boy, reads: “Fat prevention begins at home. And the buffet line.”

The campaign’s videos are equally frank and grim. In one, a plump girl says, “I don’t like going to school because all the other kids pick on me. It hurts my feelings.” In another, an obese boy asks his overweight mom, “Why am I fat?”

Georgia Children’s Health Alliance initially launched its $50 million Strong4Life campaign last summer to address the state’s pressing childhood obesity epidemic. At the start of this year, the organization ramped up its efforts with a series of billboards and TV ads meant to “stop sugar-coating” the problem. “We needed something that was more arresting and in your face than some of the flowery campaigns out there,” Linda Matzigkeit, senior vice president of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, told ABC News.

But many people think the ads are too shocking and counterproductive.

“It might actually make people feel worse,” Marsha Davis, who researches child obesity prevention at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Experts are also saying the campaign only underlines the problem and fails to offer helpful solutions. “I agree that more needs to be done to raise awareness about childhood obesity,” Marjorie Nolan, national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics told, Yahoo! Shine. “But these ads lack a message of what should be done to ultimately solve the problem.”

“We know from communication research that when we highlight a health risk but fail to provide actionable steps people can take to prevent it, the response is often either denial or some other dysfunctional behavior,” Karen Hilyard, a health communication researcher at UGA, told the Journal-Constitution.

Kids are getting fatter and fatter here in America and it’s all happening at an alarming rate. The number of overweight children has tripled since 1980, and today one in three American kids (ages 2 to 19) are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And in Georgia, where 1 million children are considered overweight the situation is especially dire. The state ranks second in the nation for childhood obesity. These children are all at an increased risk for developing such diseases as diabetes and hypertension.

How can these children be helped? Increasing awareness of the problem is the strategy behind Children’s Healthcare’s campaign. The organization’s research found that 50 percent of people surveyed didn’t recognize childhood obesity as a problem. What’s more, 75 percent of parents with overweight kids didn’t acknowledge their child as having a weight issue. “We felt like we needed a very arresting, abrupt campaign that said: ‘Hey, Georgia! Wake up. This is a problem,’ ” Matzigkeit told the Journal-Constitution.

And while the ads have been met with criticism, some are saying the harsh approach is absolutely necessary. “I think it’s really brave to talk about the elephant in the room,” Maya Walters, a teenager with high blood pressure who appeared in one of the ads, shared with the Journal-Constitution. “It’s very provocative and makes people uncomfortable, but it’s when people are uncomfortable that change comes.”

Georgia Childhood Obesity

January 4, 2012 by · Comments Off on Georgia Childhood Obesity 

Georgia Childhood ObesityGeorgia Childhood Obesity, In an effort to fight back against Georgia’s soaring rate of childhood obesity, a local children’s hospital in Atlanta decided to launch a controversial ad campaign last August featuring overweight kids with stinging captions like “chubby kids may not outlive their parents” and “it’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not.”

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Now, though, the hospital, called Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, is under attack from critics who say the ad campaign has gone too far. And I’m inclined to agree.

“This campaign is an example of what not to do in obesity prevention,” said Yale University obesity researcher Rebecca Puhl in an interview with the Today show, adding that it “perpetuates prejudice toward childhood toward children who are affected by obesity and already vulnerable to pervasive teasing and bullying because of their weight.” This, she said, makes them more likely to engage in unhealthy eating behaviors and avoidance of physical activity.

Children’s Healthcare said they were spurred to launch the campaign after the latest statistics revealed that one million children in Georgia — nearly 40 percent of the state’s children — are overweight or obese, and that three-quarters of parents with overweight kids don’t see their kids as overweight. In a press release, the hospital called the ads a “tough love” approach.

But some parents are outraged, judging by recent comments on the campaign’s Facebook page. “Horrible!” said one 42-year-old mother who wrote her 6-year-old is “taller and thicker than average” and gets teased all the time. “You have no idea obviously of the damage this will do with the ad. You will hurt more than you help.” Other posters called the campaign a form of bullying.

“The ads are targeted to parents not to kids and were meant as a wake-up call to the dangers of this epidemic,” said Linda Matzigkeit, senior vice president at Children’s Healthcare when I asked her about the criticism. “We don’t think they’ll an increase in bullying and that was certainly not our intent. As part of the $25 million campaign, she said the hospital has also trained more than 1,000 doctors, nurses, and dietitians on ways to educate parents on childhood obesity prevention and treatment.

The obesity ads remind me a lot of the graphic cigarette warning labels

that the US Food and Drug Administration plans to slap on cartons this year if they’re not stopped by industry lawsuits. They certainly grab your attention. But unlike the smoking ads — which target a bad habit — these ads target the people themselves, in this case overweight kids who are already taunted, teased, and stigmatized.

And unlike smokers who consciously choose to begin the habit and may be deterred from ever trying a cigarette in the first place, overweight kids don’t choose to get fat and can’t simply give up a specific bad habit (like eating) to shed pounds. The issue is far more complex than simply labelling obesity as bad for your health.

I just keep imagining thin kids passing by the billboards on the way to school and using them as another excuse to tease the chubby kid sitting next to them. “Hey, aren’t you that girl in the ad? Nah, you’re much fatter!”

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