A new anti-obesity campaign in Georgia has dredged up a lot of controversy and has me unsure of where exactly stand on it. The Georgia Children’s Health Alliance launched the $50 million Strong4Life ad campaign last summer to address the state’s pressing childhood obesity epidemic but has ramped up the campaign in recent months with a line of black and white posters and videos.
One of the black-and-white posters shows a sad-faced overweight girl with the words: “Warning. It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re fat” beneath her. Another ad, under a sad-faced boy, reads: “Fat prevention begins at home. And the buffet line.”
In one of the videos, a plump girl says, “I don’t like going to school because all the other kids pick on me. It hurts my feelings.” While in another, an obese boy asks his overweight mom, “Why am I fat?”
“We needed something that was more arresting and in your face than some of the flowery campaigns out there,” said Linda Matzigkeit, senior vice president of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to ABC News.
Here’s one video ad from the campaign:
These are somewhat dark ads that forces parents to take another look at the choices they may be making in their own house to contribute to the issue of childhood obesity. And yes, I agree with that. It’s hard to argue with statistics that state childhood obesity is an epidemic. According to the CDC:
- Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years.
- The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 20% in 2008.
- Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to 18% over the same period.
- In 2008, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese. (Overweight is defined as having excess body weight for a particular height from fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors.3 Obesity is defined as having excess body fat. Overweight and obesity are the result of “caloric imbalance”—too few calories expended for the amount of calories consumed—and are affected by various genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors.)
And of course the CDC also mentions what these numbers mean:
Immediate health effects:
- Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. In a population-based sample of 5- to 17-year-olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
- Obese adolescents are more likely to have prediabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels indicate a high risk for development of diabetes.
- Children and adolescents who are obese are at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, and social and psychological problems such as stigmatization and poor self-esteem.
Long-term health effects:
- Children and adolescents who are obese are likely to be obese as adults11-14 and are therefore more at risk for adult health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. One study showed that children who became obese as early as age 2 were more likely to be obese as adults.
- Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk for many types of cancer, including cancer of the breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, pancreas, gall bladder, thyroid, ovary, cervix, and prostate, as well as multiple myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
So with these glaring statistics I can’t help but agree that something needs to be done about this epidemic. Which brings me back to the Georgia ad campaign. Is showcasing overweight adolescents as billboards and in a sense “shaming” them the answer? Is embarrassing kids the right path to ending childhood obesity?
“Blaming the victim rarely helps,” Dr. Miriam Labbok, director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said to ABC News. “These children know they are fat and that they are ostracized already.”
I am on the fence with this one. Are posting these kids as Martyrs in a sense the way to beat obesity? I mean how many ads have shown long-time smokers suffering from the horrific effects of smoking (remember the old lady speaking through her throat? Watch the video.) These are deep, poignant and full of truth, but are they really effective? And in the case of the obesity ads, isn’t in a sense (in the eyes of a child anyway) putting overweight kids (and kids who look like them) out there to be even more ridiculed than they might already be?
By “blaming the victim” are we just setting kids to be even more victimized without re4morse from other kids? Or is this the wake up call parents and kids need to change their unhealthy habits?
I’d love to know your thoughts on these ads. I’ll do a follow up posts with highlights of everyone’s input!
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{ 23 comments }
What a touchy subject. I do know that the medical community wants children
between the ages of 6-11, to have their cholesterol checked and monitored.
This is to hopefully stave off future health problems from high cholesterol.
A statistic that I have said that 1/3 children in this age group is obese…
I have mixed feelings about this Georgia Anti-Obesity Campaign. I have a great-niece
who is a very tall and big girl. Even though her parents are well-educated, they don't
seem to be proactive in her weight management! Cindi
I am pretty much alone in this view, but I think that the childhood obesity epidemic is wildly exaggerated. Of course, I live in Western Canada, so maybe it's a geographical thing but, even though our news media is constantly telling us that thirty percent of Canadian children are overweight or obese, I have yet to see any group of randomly selected children in my city (Edmonton, Alberta) in which there are that many fat children. I live across the street from an elementary school, and the children on its playground do not look fat to me. I suspect that this is a fake epidemic that is designed to impel an educational campaign in the schools whose intent is to teach healthy eating habits, in hopes of innoculating today's children against bad eating habits that will eventually make them fat as middle-aged adults. An alarming number of these healthy eating advocates seem to think that Coca Cola is poisonous, or that no one should eat anything but raw fruits and vegetables and skinned chicken. I don't trust them.
Travel to Georgia, Alabama, Texas…. your jaw would drop to the ground.
Negative is as negative does.
I hope programs like national healthy lunches are reshaping our children's future – literally. I hate to see kids profiled negatively – anywhere anyhow anytime. Ad bullying?
These kids are all prepubertal, that chubby kid stage before their hormones kick in.
Dislike!
The "chubby prepubescent stage" of a child's life does NOT look like the photos included in this campaign. These children are at a dangerously high risk for Type 2 Diabetes (the kind that is acquired by a person's lifestyle not the kind that they are born with).
This is arguably child abuse to allow your kid to become this unhealthy. The campaign may be a dramatic message, but it is accurate. Kids are being bullied for being fat. Kids are developing life-long illnesses much MUCH earlier than every before.
This IS an epidemic!
Whether you agree with the methods of this campaign or not, it is simply fact that children are not as healthy as they should be, could be, need to be in the United States. I believe that the majority of this responsibility falls on the parents as they are responsible in every other aspect of their child's life, they are primary source of nutrition and for young kids they are the primary role model for healthy (or in this case, disastrously unhealthy living).
The Strong4Life ad campaign is standing up for the health and happiness of these children and every other child in America. If you don't agree with the means, then start making a difference in your own way.
LIKE!
I'm in total agreement with Sheryl here. Regardless of whether the children in the photos are chubby as a result of prepubescence or not, chubby prepubescent children do not meet the "Healthy BMI" designated by the CDC. These ads put ideas in kids heads that you should be judged by your weight. It also bullies parents by blatantly calling them bad parents because their children are overweight. Not cool and not accurate.
I just want to say it goes with poverty- if you only have food bank stuff and a really limited budget, you are eating MOSTLY carbs, (ramen, mac n cheese) and little to no fruit and veg b/c of the cost.
Very true, although we should all be clear it is certainly not limited to low-income families. I think this point is even more cause for alarm. Not only has it become acceptable for children to be overweight, it has become the norm to not even care.
Obesity is so common that people dont even give it a second thought.
Our country must be pretty messed up if we allow children to be treated like this. We must be even more messed up if we actually think a family that needs help, is approved for food stamps or other financial aid, can support themselves on the systems they rely on. Then we offer no further steps up to self-reliance, no means to get out of that system. THEN those more financially blessed get angry and talk down to "those poor people who dont try to get a job" and are "spending all [their] hard earned tax money."
It is a very incomplete system and it has caused a noticeable division in our country. Wouldnt you agree?
I do worry about the health of the future generations because of the obesity crisis. I don't think the efforts in Georgia are taking the correct approach. Anything that makes children feel inferior or "less than" is not a smart idea. We have to make children feel good about themselves first, which then enables them to make healthy choices.
I agree that it is better to make a child feel good about themselves but do you tell a child who has cancer and has a life expectancy of one month that everything is going to be fine? No, you tell them the truth. You tell them its hard, and its going to hurt, but youre going to be there loving them and doing whatever you can to make them better. You tell them youre going to fight for them. Youre going to give them hope.
This campaign is NOT to belittle children who have not had proper nutrition since they were weened from the bottle. It is to kick their parents into high gear and realize their mistake so that they can give them hope, and tools, and strength to fight their obesity.
Donna, I completely understand your point and I agree full-heartedly, but more so I believe that our country needs to wake up to this epidemic. Countless physicians, research communities, and celebrities have tried to speak up. Documentaries have shown the error of our ways in more than just a few notable films. Nothing has changed–in fact its gotten worse.
If this controversial billboard smacks some people awake then I'm all for it. If it hurts some kids feelings because theyre dangerously obese then I hope it motivates them to make a change in their life. I hope it saves their lives.
There is no "sugar coating" this issue. There is NO nice way to tell a child he or she is obese and that she or he may develop diabetes, or countless other health issues that will, without doubt, shorten their lives drastically. There is no way to say it besides honestly. And this is the most honest campaign I see yet.
While I do agree that obesity and both adults and children is a big problem, I am just not so sure this is the way to go about addressing it. My fear is that it could have the oppoisite effect on some kids, making them not want to eat at all and sending them down the path of anorexia or bulemia which would be equally troubling.
Good point Tari, I think thats a reasonable concern. I wonder though what the "right" way is to turn this epidemic around.
I think it's important to bring attention to this problem.
I was an obese child, and now I'm a morbidly obese adult. We were extremely poor and when you are trying to feed a whole family on a very very small budget, it's very difficult to get good food. I've no blame for my parents. None at all. They did what they could. I would love it if these obese children didn't feel bad about themselves. I'm not sure this campaign really helps them do that.
parents faults, point blank period. just cause your child cries for McDonalds doesnt mean u HAVE to give it to them. teach them right from wrong not what they say goes or they'll cry for hours until they get what they want. im not jumping at you or anything but a happy meal or "good food" doesnt mean expensive food. 99cent stores have a variety of vegetables and such. parents now a days should think about what they put in their childrens mouths to avoid them having to deal with obesity in their futures.
There's no doubt that childhood obesity is an epidemic, but assigning blame to one group is counterproductive. What about schools? Healthy meals for children are few and far between. When I was in high school, I was part of a group of students who represented a much larger student body in wanting a salad bar. We petitioned the district, and after a while, were told straight-up that healthier options just weren't in the budget when each meal had to come under $1.50/student. Also, while my district never cut PE, schools around me were. Not having PE for students whose only other active time was 15min at recess was definitely not helping things.
As for your McDonalds comments….Well, parents ARE responsible for teaching their children good habits, but most of the families that I grew up with (barely scraping by, sometimes on food stamps) rarely fed their kids fast food. It was too expensive for a family of four in my neighborhood. (Maybe it was my area of the country?) But what parents DID buy were things like frozen dinners (high in fat and calories), canned fruits and vegetables (which have little nutritional content), Minute rice (cheap, but packs on pounds), Ramen, —you get the picture. Foods that were cheap and kept for a long time, but packed on the weight. (You're not exactly going to buy fresh fruits and veggies when they keep for a few days before spoiling when you can only afford to go shopping once a month. Not a good use of your money.) Since most kids aren't able to buy and prep their own food, changes need to begin with parents, which is where I somewhat support this campaign.
However, making kids feel bad about their bodies doesn't do a lot of good, either. (Speaking from experience, I was a chubby 7yr old who was mercilessly teased over 10 extra pounds by a kid who was, oddly, morbidly obese. That last fact didn't matter to me then—only that someone was putting me down and making me feel bad.) The best course of action, I feel, is to build up childrens' self-esteem and encourage them to lose weight for their health. Run positive campaigns and success stories. Empower families. Model good behavior, both at home and in school, and (most) kids will want to follow suit.
It is a problem in today's world and there is blame to place in a lot of cases. There is however some cases where obesity is a family trait that can be handed down from parent to child, just as other traits are. I really don't think that placing those kids faces or body images in photos is a very good idea and very much so not a nice thing to inflict on the kids that happen to be in the photos. How would you like to be the one in the photo ad instead of your child and saying that if kids don't control what they eat or how much they eat, they could end up looking like them, Put an over weight diabetic on a dialysis machine with one or both legs amputated in those photos and let them see what could and will happen to some of them if they don't start controlling what they put into their mouth. I'm sure those adults wouldn't really like to be shown in that light but would be better able to handle the public reactions to seeing the pictures.
A lot of the problem with kids today is that they sit in front of TV screens either watching endless hours of what they have on cable and satellite or playing video games after getting home from school while eating junk food. Kids that haven't started any kind of school yet are the same way, parents put them in front of TV screens watching those kiddie channels or putting in cartoon movies and giving them junk food to eat in hope of keeping them from running around the house and playing or taking them outside and playing with them.
In the days that a lot of us older folks that are now the Grandparents were their ages, we played outside instead of watching TV all the time, we only had three maybe four channels to watch and the only way to watch movies was to go to a movie theater, which then only had one screen and if you were lucky two screens.
Meal times were spent eating together and not in front of the TV, we actually ate meals sitting at a table with each other and most meals were cooked at home in the kitchen. A dinner from outside the home was kind of a special thing and it was usually brought home to be eaten at the table with each other and if we were really lucky we would get a soda to drink with the meal, usually we would drink milk with our meals or sometimes we would get kool aid. During the day while playing outside we could get a cold glass of that kool aid or just plain old water, which your body needs to keep your body in shape and it helped to keep your system flushed of toxins.
The junk food of today that kids consume in large amounts on almost a daily basis was something of a treat for us in those days. A package of whatever was bought would have to last you the whole week, not just for a single day. Oh well, didn't mean to rant on and on but this just got me going. Don't Use The Kids in those campaigns, they get picked on and made fun of enough, I was guilty of it myself forty years ago and I wish I could apologize to that poor not so little red headed girl today.
Don't apologize for the rant Michael! We appreciate you leaving your comments and love having lively discussions like this. Although not everyone agrees, it's great to see such passion behind peoples opinions.
Cheers!
Kyle
Life360 Community Manager
Interesting discussion. We talk about obesity as an epidemic but we don't treat it like one. Smallpox and polio were both epidemics that have been eradicated in the US, not by blaming parents, or anyone else for that matter. Prevention was the only way to end the epidemic. We can't simply vaccinate against obesity; it's much more complex. But we will not solve the problems associated with it by placing blame or by trying to "cure' people of obesity. Prevention starts with a community effort that supports children, whether that be through empowering parents or pressing the media for positive campaigns. We need to rethink our actions as a nation.
Thanks Katie
Everyone, Katie is a registered dietician and a contributor to this blog. She writes two columns here (twice a week). You can check them out here:
-Family Table Tuesdays: http://www.life360.com/blog/category/family/famil…
-Food 4 Thought: http://www.life360.com/blog/category/health/food-…
While I understand that it would be good to have fewer fat kids, I agree that while this campaign addresses the touchy issue, imagine how the fat kids will feel. Since they aren't supposed to eat the wrong foods in public, they will become closet eaters, and if the issue about their weight is addressed a lot, they might develop eating disorders to help lose weight or even just maintain their current overweight.
Childhood obesity is a growing problem that should be addressed, but there are better ways to do so than this. This ad campaign doesn't address the multiple factors that contribute to obesity, nor does it help create positive change in any meaningful way.
Instead of funding these humiliating public chastisements, why doesn't the Georgia Children’s Health Alliance use that $50 million to fund healthy eating programs at home and school–not only to educate children and parents about making healthier food choices, but also to help make those healthier foods available to those who can't afford them.
I think that anything that brings it out in the open and causes a discussion is a good start because it is such an overwhelming problem. There are too many health problems that result from obesity and childhood is the time to nip it in the bud.