Are Georgia's anti-obesity ads unfair to fat kids? (PICTURES)
Georgia Children's Health Alliance
(CBS/AP) Unfair. That's what some are calling Georgia's new anti-obesity campaign, which features images of overweight boys and girls staring somberly from billboards and online videos.
"Chubby kids may not outlive their parents," reads one of the signs. Reads another, "Big bones didn't make me this way. Big meals did."
The ads won praise for their attention-grabbing tactics. But they also have outraged parents, activists and academics who feel the result is more stigma for an already beleaguered group of children.
"Billboards depicting fat kids are extraordinarily harmful to the very kids they are supposedly trying to help," said the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
The Georgia Children's Health Alliance, which created the ads, said they were necessary to jar parents of obese kids out of a state of denial that their children had a problem.
The furor reflects a broad nationwide phenomenon as states, cities and the White House itself expand efforts to curb obesity. For all the public support of these efforts, there's also a vocal and passionate corps of skeptics worried that discrimination toward overweight people will only increase.
"Stigma is not an effective motivator," said Rebecca Puhl, a Yale University psychologist who is an expert on weight discrimination. "Whether children or adults, if they are teased or stigmatized, they're much more likely to engage in unhealthy eating and avoidance of physical activity."
The spotlight on obesity intensified last year when Michelle Obama unveiled her "Let's Move" campaign. Its goal, she said, was to eliminate childhood obesity by helping parents make better food choices, serving healthier food in schools, and encouraging children to exercise more.
Many aspects of "Let's Move" won near-universal praise. But activists in the fat-acceptance movement and experts who espouse a "health at every size" approach were upset that the campaign encouraged the monitoring of children's body mass index (BMI).
Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco, is the author of "Health At Every Size" - a manifesto for a movement stressing a healthy lifestyle rather than weight control. She said the focus by "Let's Move" on BMI was of dubious medical value and posed potential problems for kids at all weight levels.
"It's done much more damage than good," Bacon said. "The larger kids feel bad about themselves, and the thinner kids feel it doesn't matter whether they exercise or eat well."
There's no question that "Let's Move" has broad, high-powered backing, from groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics. Its supporters note that one in three American children are overweight or obese, putting them at high risk of serious health problems while billions of dollars are spent yearly treating obesity-related conditions.
But Puhl says too little attention is paid to such bullying.
"Youth who are obese cannot conceal their weight - their stigma is very visible," she said. "And yet their voices are not being heard. They are so vulnerable to victimization, with such devastating consequences."
She also has examined how obese people are portrayed in ads, news reports, movies and TV shows. Too often, says Puhl, they are depicted in needlessly negative ways - slouching on a sofa, eating junk food.
"We need to be sure we are fighting obesity, not obese people," she says.
See the ads for yourself at the Stop Childhood Obesity site.
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All of these human weaknesses come at a cost to individuals and society alike (broken homes, health care costs, working class financial burden, personal safety, etc...) So, why not 'brand' everyone - like you want to brand obese children.
In America as long as you 'hide' your bad (dangerous) shortcomings society will not ridicule or scorn you.
However, just because you can't 'see' the termites - it in no way lessens the imminent destruction that is sure to follow in their wake. You may not be 'guilty' of being fat - but what are you guilty of...
Obesity is a serious problem; however, ATTACKING and LABELING these kids won't solve the problem!
The message you are sending to these young people is that being a liar, sloth, or miscreant will be tolerated, but woe to you if you are fat. Great for their already bruised self-esteems...
Is this really the best that 'educated' adults can come up with! What next - 'scarlet letters' perhaps...
But lets just say for the sake of argument it is a good measure. The guidelines put out from the National Institute of Health were raised several years prior to 2000. By there own figures, 25 million people who were not obese one day were the next day. Statistical note: If you change the guidelines any comparison is invalid.
Finally, lets look at these poor kid. Not the ones in the ads. They have enough problems with their parents that would allow them to be publicly humiliated. I'm talking about the ones that dread school because they are the ones being bullied and made fun of in school. This ad says to the rest of the kids, "the fat kids are objects of scorn and we can make fun of them". I always find it interesting that we are told to be sensitive to certain groups while others are fair game. We give all the kid in the class an award for something because we don't want the poor students to feel bad about themselves but pile it on the fat kids, there is something wrong with him. I am waiting for the first obese kid in Georgia to be bullied into suicide and watch the parents blame these ads, and they would be right. Of course it would be too late for the kid.
Yes, we are teaching children to be more accepting of others but crossdressing or your sexual orientation do not directly cause health issues such as heart disease or diabetes. They aren't trying to make fun of them, they want them to be healthy not only physically, but also emotionally and socially. I used to be fat, really fat. Through most of high school, people made fun of me, nicknames, girls wouldn't look twice at me. And you know what? I got fed up, I didn't enjoy being fat, the ridicule and low self esteem. I decided to change. Besides, being gay isn't a choice, as opposed to poor eating and exercising habits.
This country needs more ads like this. I'm morethan willing to do an ad like this because I'd love to tell people how many health problems I have as a result of being obese, and how I now have to go through so many things to eventually get weight loss surgery. My obesity isn't simply from eating too much. I've suffered a lot of abuse in my life. Obesity is one of the top epidemic diseases going on in the world today, and the majority of it is going on here in the U.S. So yeah, I want you to accept me as a person and not put me down for ANY of my differences, but I sure don't want you to think that obesity should just be acceptable. It's not. It's unhealthy and should never be acceptable.
How the heck does she think they got that way?!? Anyway, it's the parents who need to be shamed into action since they obviously are too stupid and/or undermotivated to do anything about their child's problem any other way. Most are probably afraid they might have to stop denying their own weight problem and actually get off their lazy butts, exercise, and prepare healthy meals for the whole family.
Seriously? A nutrition professor named Bacon?