Can You Scare Kids Into Losing Weight?

[YouTube Clip]

Well, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is trying. It's battling childhood obesity (Georgia is ranked second highest in the United States) with its new ad campaign, which has been labeled "grim" and "building a climate of hate" by critics.

The ads, which appear on the campaign’s website, strong4life.com, are modeled after blunt — but effective — campaigns attacking methamphetamine use and smoking.

In one spot, an overweight girl named Maritza says: “My doctors say I have something called hypertension. I’m really scared.” And in another, that ends with “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid,” a child named Tina says she doesn’t like going to school because the other kids pick on her.

Critics say the ads will further ostracize children such as Tina. In posts on the Strong4Life Facebook page, they accuse the campaign of building a “climate of hate.”

What do you think? Will that be effective?

Carrie Teegardin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the story: Link | Strong4Life website


I am all for trying to get kids healthy. I am all too aware of the health risks of obesity, having fought it most of my adult life, and finally was able to lose the excess weight after gastric bypass surgery. However, I think the emphasis should be on helping parents help their children instead of using the psychological approach on the children themselves. Overweight kids have enough self-esteem problems that they don't need adults laying this on them.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
My younger son has cystic fibrosis and was under the care of CHoA for years, until he graduated to the adult CF program at Emory, and we have supported them right back. But if they have run out of actual diseases to fight, we may need to re-think that. This campaign is not just cruel and counterproductive, it's a waste of resources.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Judging from the copy on the posters, it appears these are aimed at parents rather than children. Also how many children that age would connect with the word obesity? Sounds an awful lot like some parents simply don't want to be confronted with reality and are hiding (no literal insult intended) behind their children.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
I agree with Jason 123 and Dennis X. Regardless of any ideas of this campaign, I seriously think something is wrong with these kids, either the way they are being brought up, or SOMETHING. Kids usually play so much outside that they don't really get a chance to get fat. If they are sitting on their fat butts inside and not going out and being a kid, they are missing out on some of the most important playtime of their lives. I seriously don't understand how these kids can possibly be this way...they are the most active that they will ever be...
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Was one of the rare fat kids growing up in an era when it was ok to make fun of the fatties per Dennis X, and already felt shitty enough about that as it was. Better to emphasize reasonable portion-sizes and meal components. Most of these kids already think of themselves as too worthless or so fat that it's not worth bothering about. Honestly, the ads aren't that bad -- the kids hear and think far worse about themselves as it is. But does it foster change in them? No, probably not. And shouldn't that be the goal?
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Im fat (6'4" 350lbs) and I think this is a great idea. I wish more people would stop being so PC and just say what they feel. It is socially acceptable to scorn the tobacco user or the alcoholic but not the person killing themselves with deep fried cheese. If we made it less acceptable for people to be fatties then perhaps people would make more of an effort to lose weight.

The USA has become so PC touchy feely it makes me almost too nauseous to finish my third hot fudge sundae.... almost!
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
This isn't about the mean-spirited teasing of fat kids. It's about the fact that their lives are in danger. The detractors worried about stigmatization are the same ones who support "social promotion" in schools and sports where everybody wins; the thinking that has given us a generation of millennials who are, as Morley Safer called them, narcissistic praise-hounds.

The preservation of self-esteem, even if it's built on fabrication is more important than real accomplishment and goals that are difficult to attain. The flip side of achievement is failure and if you are taught that you can't fail, you won't learn. Weight-loss is not easy. I struggle with it. Obesity in kids is a fact and its resolution requires facing facts as well.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
If guilt, shame and self-loathing worked, we'd be a nation of perfect toothpicks with great teeth by now. The beatings will continue until morale improves, apparently.

Ignore the fast food and ready-to-eat lobby and tax the crap out of unhealthy food, but don't establish institutional guilt-trips like this. Shock tactics are middling at reducing smoking rates, but ratcheting tobacco taxes was and is a remarkably effective tool.

If you shame people, they'll just associate making healthy food choices with, well, agreeing with you. Who wants to do that?
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Adam Polansky gets it. This isn't about shaming kids into doing something about their weight. The children's lives are threatened, generally because of lifestyles and habits they pick up from their parents.

As for obesity being a "fabricated epidemic," that's just reactionary hogwash. Twenty years ago, no state had over 20% obesity rate among adults. Today, EVERY state does. Things are changing, and it's going to result in unimaginable health-care costs when it really starts catching up with us.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Just a few posts after this one (in other words scroll UP), this very site is glorifying hamburgers and fast food. THAT is the problem, these fat kids are just the result.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
A big part of the problem is that healthy food costs more than unhealthy food. Add to that the fact that kids are kept very busy these days (kids today have a lot more scheduled activities than they did when I was growing up), and running around means there's often no time to sit down and have a real dinner.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Yes I'm fat and no I don't need you or TV ads to tell me. I know. Believe me I know and have known for the last 55 years. I also don't need medication for high blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes because I don't have them. I'm probably healthier than most of you but it's all about my gene's. I know I'm something of an aberration but a person's propensity to gain weight isn't all about overeating and their health isn't in decline just because of obesity. Genetics plays the biggest role in the health and size of our bodies.
Oh and Dennis X. Try and tease me into being skinny now and let's see how healthy you are at 60.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Society awards losing teams the same as winning teams in order to not hurt the little kiddies feelings, but the same society isolates, denigrates, and casts out fat kids. Kids are suspended from school for bullying because they played tag, but the school targets kids who are overweight.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
The parents of obese kids are almost always to blame. There are two brothers in my son's school who are very overweight. The youngest at 5 is already the fattest kid in his class, although probably not obese. The oldest at 8 is frankly huge and gets out of breath walking from the car to the school door - well it is uphill. The thing is that their mother does something that no other parent in the school does. As soon as her kids walk out of the door at 3:30 she hands them fatty snacks.

I know there are mothers who continually feed their kids because they think they are being kind and that overweight kids look healthy, but that is delusional and needs to be dealt with. If such parents were harming their kids health in almost any other way they would be in serious trouble. Imagine a mother handing her kids cigarettes or alcohol at the school gates - she would be prosecuted. Parents who over feed their kids are guilty of child abuse.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Kids today have a lot more indoor entertainment options than I did growing up. There was no internet, no video games, no PCs, no cable television. Actually, television was four whopping channels -- if you were lucky enough to live in a good-sized city. There was nothing else to do but go outside and run around and play. I don't recall more than a couple slightly-chubby kids in all my school days.
Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)
Login to comment.
Click here to access all of this post's 18 comments




Email This Post to a Friend
"Can You Scare Kids Into Losing Weight? "

Separate multiple emails with a comma. Limit 5.

 

Success! Your email has been sent!

close window
X

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

I agree
 
Learn More