Date:
10/22/2007 02:50 PM Government's new obesity ads too soft on fat, say
critics, calling them 'namby-pamby'
By MIKE STOBBE
AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA (AP) _ Drunks swimming in gin, smokers
in body bags and dopers living with their parents deep into
adulthood. Those are among the public service ads shown in
the past.
But the government's new batch of obesity
spots declines even to show a fat person, let alone wag a
finger for gluttony or sloth.
No one is advocating public service announcements
that ridicule fat people; experts say such spots would do
more harm than good. But critics complain that the three new
spots premiering this month are a wimpy attack on the costly
and deadly explosion of obesity in America.
"It's so namby-pamby I think people will
shrug it off," said Michael Jacobson of the Center for
Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based advocacy
organization.
The three new spots are the latest in a series
created by the Ad Council and the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, which try to tackle the nation's obesity
problem with ads that encourage healthy snacking and taking
the stairs.
Creators of the "Small Steps" campaign,
funded by the government at more than $1.5 million a year,
cite survey data for 467 adults which showed those who saw
the ads did more walking and adopted some other healthy habits
than those who didn't see the ads.
But critics say such a survey is hardly proof
of success, and the nation's fat problem is clearly getting
worse — more than one in three U.S. children are overweight
or obese, and two in three adults are.
"I think 'Small Steps' is a euphemism
for small vision," said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale
University's Center for Eating and Weight Disorders.
The "Small Steps" campaign began
in 2004. It was created for free by McCann Erickson New York,
the ad agency that created the MasterCard "Priceless"
campaign. Six TV spots have aired so far, all professionally
produced and humorous, highlighting tips to healthier living.
This month, three more spots joined the rotation,
along with a multimedia campaign focusing on exercise. The
new anti-obesity TV spots show trim or slightly pudgy people
noticing blobs of fat on a hotel room floor or in a theater.
They comment that someone must have lost it by eating healthy
snacks.
The spots' creators say they learned in focus
groups that many people are intimidated — hopeless,
even — about the sustained changes needed to slim down.
"So many people, when they think about
losing weight, see it as a Sisyphean task — 'I have
to lose weight but I can't fit it into my busy schedule,'"
said Peggy Conlon, president of the Ad Council.
The ads offer easily achievable tips that
empower people to make positive changes, she added.
The ads targeting smoking aren't as tame.
A recent one by the New York City Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene shows smokers' decayed and tumored bodies.
Young viewers pay more attention to ads that
evoke feelings of personal loss, sadness, anger, disgust or
fear, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Kids also tend to remember such ads
longer.
That drama is lacking in the obesity spots
— for example, none have offered a surgeon's view of
fat, or dramatized a death from Type 2 diabetes, or shown
a person complaining about how a fat neighbor's medical bills
are costing taxpayers.
In the past, the vegan advocacy group, Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine, has taken a somewhat confrontational
approach.
In 2005, the group put out a spot in which
doctors yank a pizza and jumbo-sized soda away from an intently
eating fat boy and toss him an apple. They put out another
in which the same doctors haul away fatty foods from a restaurant
called Chubby's.
The group has no data on whether the ads are
working, but the government ads "don't address the obesity
problem in a vivid enough way to get people's attention,"
said Patrick Sullivan, the group's communications director.
That raises a second complaint with the government's
campaign: It sidesteps what some feel are the real causes
of the obesity epidemic, the abundance of cheap and large
portions of sugary and high-calorie foods.
"The U.S. government doesn't have the
guts to go after junk food producers," Jacobson said.
Tied in with the "Small Steps" campaign,
the Ad Council and federal health department are part of the
"Coalition for Healthy Children," whose members
include Coca Cola, PepsiCo, the Hershey Co. and the National
Confectioners Association. Critics say the partnership suggests
a conflict of interest that might dissuade efforts to discourage
soft drinks or candy bars.
Food and soda companies did not alter what
was said in spots, said Ellyn Fisher, an Ad Council spokeswoman.
The content was shaped by advertising research, which concluded
the spots were humorous and motivating, she said.
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On the Net:
Small Steps campaign: www.smallstep.gov
Center for Science in the Public Interest:
http://www.cspinet.org/
