It’s official – I am speechless.
8.3.11 UPDATE: PLEASE SEE THE TERRIFIC RESPONSE FROM OBESITY PREVENTION AUSTRALIA IN THE NEXT BLOG
I wanted to draw to your attention the marketing approach that Australian not-for-profit Obesity Prevention Australia has taken. In their words, their aim is to:
“revers(e) the obesity and inactivity epidemic that is debilitating our nation”
Their advisory board includes Australian Biggest Loser Personal Trainer Shannan Ponton.
I am absolutely speechless, and so I am just going to put a few images up, for comment, including one taken by Kate Burns at her local icecream shop in South Australia. There are many more examples on their website if you want to go and have a look at www.obesityprevention.com.au
Image One: Childhood Obesity is Child Abuse
Image Two: Time is Ticking
Image Three: Obesity Causes
Image Four: Obesity Kills
Image Five: No Excuses
Image Six: Coin Donation Boxes – this one at an Ice-Cream Shop in South Australia (via @kateburns)
Themocracy
Every single thing on that site is dishonestly framed. It’s hard to know where to start, I’m so grossed out by the whole thing, but here’s a couple of things that struck me to begin with:
1. The ‘advisory board’ contains nobody with health or even nutrition qualifications.
2. They claim that over 60% of Australians are overweight or obese (presumably using the seriously flawed BMI to calculate that). However, they also tweeted that ‘nearly 60%’ of emergency-ward patients were overweight/obese. Surely this means you’re LESS likely to end up in the emergency ward if you’re a fatty! Yay!
3. It’s worth noting that they really aren’t saying anything different to most ‘health’ initiatives of this kind – they’re just being a bit more blatant about it.
Thanks Kate. I just was absolutely overwhelmed when I saw this. It is disgusting.
I cannot imagine what it must be as a parent of a fat child to be told you were abusing that child. Or taking your kid for an icecream only to see that coin donation box in front of you.
Just disgraceful.
Image 5 seems to be directly lifted from UK cigarette packs, but at least with those you can sort of see why they’re doing it (although I don’t agree with this sort of scaremongering) – whereas these seem to be about collecting money – for what exactly? Are we supposed to be pitching in to pay for WLS? Not as bad as the sausages-as-nooses TV advert that used to be on, but getting there.
So they’re trying a new tactic – shaming fat people. Telling them they’re going to die (obesity kills), they aren’t worth spending money on in hospital (obesity costs), they’re up there on the morality scale with molesters (childhood obesity is child abuse).
Revolutionary!
And its worked SO WELL in the past!
I’m taking off my sarcasm hat and going home.
Hear Hear!
Sadly it’s not a new tactic – they’re just ramping it up to a new level.
Much like KateJ – I see a Charity Expert, Mental Health Expert, Education Expert, Accounting Expert and Fitness Industry Expert. Not a single “expert” on internal medicine (GP, nutritionist or otherwise)…yet. They’re still waiting to fill those roles according to the site. With more reality show hosts or people with genuine professional experience? Hmm. Call me cynical…but I’d sooner take advice from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food if we’re going to tackle this issue in such a vulgar way.
Yep get on TV or just jump on board a website and you’re an expert! Gosh why the hell did I got to uni again? These people are just out to make money off this. And any business that has any of this marketing or the like in their business will be told and I will not be supporting them. #FAIL!
And I’d be very interested to see if that Mental Health Expert has any expertise in pharmacology and the metabolic effects of a large range of psychiatric drugs. Or are they just “fat makes you depressed, get skinny yay!”?
Stage 1 of anti-obesity messaging: Create crisis. Lower BMI thresholds to make ‘epidemic’ more credible. Claim that increase in diagnoses of fat-correlated conditions is actually an increase in incidence because of growing fatness. CHECK
Stage 2 of anti-obesity messaging: Pour taxpayer money into ‘incentives’ (the carrot), like school lunch programs, wellness programs, and prevention. Hint that fat kids are caused by bad parents and can be fixed by good policy. CHECK
Stage 3 of anti-obesity messaging: Blame parents for initiatives in Stage 2 that had no proven track-record of success to begin with. State outright that parents of fat children are child abusers. Stigmatize both them and their fat children. Hint that they are the reason the economy is bad (or, if improving, not improving fast enough). CHECK (as of now)
Stage 4 of anti-obesity messaging: Fine, tax, or deny benefits to parents of fat children and/or fat adults. Threaten to take fat children away from parents unless parents agree to invasive government ‘handling’ of their child’s ‘problem’ (included forced dieting, summer camps, special schools, and even surgery). NOT YET CHECKED
In other words, I don’t like where this is going.
I think that there are cases where extremely heavy children have been taken from their parents. Perhaps I’m remembering an account from Paul Campos’s book, The Obesity Myth?
Yes, that’s true. A girl in New Mexico, and there are some cases of parents coming under fire the UK, too, if my memory serves. However, it’s not, by far, the norm. Once a standardized structure gets into place with cutoffs, procedures, and ample precedence, that’s when one really has to worry.
The cases where it’s happened always seem to have a real class/race component to them, where it’s assumed that poor/uneducated/’foreign’ people must be too stupid to know how to stop their kids from getting fat. The class and race issues tied up with fat hatred are a big, big part of the problem.
Agreed completely.
I love your breakdown of this.
Oh, I just need to note that I realize this is not a public entity. Unfortunately, sometimes these over-the-top private organizations can start getting lots of press and eventually start influencing public policy (with, at the very least, another source of Truthy Facts).
That’s why we need to keep awesome warriors like Sam in the ear of the public policy-makers!
Awwww thanks!
In October this year, they want to hold an Obesity Prevention Month. If there are any public events, I think we need to hold a mass fatty protest.
I like!
I can’t find the link now, but I’ve read some credible stuff about how bullying of fat kids goes way up during events like Obesity Prevention Month. I’m happy to join the fat counter-protest!
I’m in! I’ll happily organise something in BrisVegas
I would definitely be there. Obesity prevention month!!! I have the shits and I don’t the get the shits easily. Keep my email, I would be happy to be “spammed” by fatties everywhere so we can all get together on this.
My kids are thin, I am fat and my kids are awesome cos the know fat does not equal unhealthy and they never make comments about “fat” people. I wish everyone could be like them and not make assumptions based on looks….and that stupid BMI!!! I have had arguments with my doc as I refuse to accept this as a measure of my or any one elses health.
Cheers all…
hullabaloobear@gmail.com
I’d support this too – modulo me being totally snowed under with 475 assignments since that’s about 5 weeks before the end of this ridiculous teaching degree I’ve undertaken.
Funny how other health issues have “awareness and support” campaigns, rather than “anti-health issue” campaigns.
Eeek.
I can’t believe the blatant promotion of services that will end up costing the user $s:
“As a FREE service to all OPA Supporters Club Members, we will put you in touch with a fully qualified and insured personal trainer in your area (where available)…All OPA Supporters Club members will receive a FREE introductory session, and a 5% discount off the trainers personal or group fitness sessions.”
And what is with that freaky shield emblazoned with “Professionals Unite” Ughhh!
So many of the previous commnets have covered most of the things I would like to say, and probably far more eloquently than I could.
As usual it’s fat people that are to blame for everything and should just get their shit together. To stoop to this level is a new low. Have they not reqlised that these kind of images have not stopped people smoking, speeding etc. Ad agencies getting fat from this stupidity. Obesity is an easy target and to continue to pummel the issue creates the illusion that government, industry and others are making a difference and care (Sorry I am just choking). Basically our health as a country, fat, thin and everything in between, is declining, not just fat people. Lifestyle diseases are on the rise and to reverse or even halt requires massive changes across the board. For many reasons, primarily economically this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. So lets just target a group of people and shame, blame and attack them for a problem that is ubiquitous to our society. I also believe the obsession with thinness is also driving up the numbers affected by mental illness, but this is obviously ok, as long as they are not fat as this link is never mentioned. Until this health is looked at objectively and HONESTLY then we are not going to see improvements in health that all these self-interest groups pretend they care about.
I strongly disagree that our health as a country is declining – people are healthier for longer and live longer than ever. Diseases that are on the increase are because we’re living long enough to get them, rather than dropping dead in our 50s (or dying as children). Everyone’s going to die of something. This is not to say that there are not problems of inequality (you only need to look at Aboriginal health to see that) and those should be addressed, but attacking fat people in an environment of good (but expensive!) health care is revolting.
As a medical professional (and a ‘thin’ person), I feel somewhat of an outsider and an insider in this debate, but here are my initial thoughts, for what it’s worth:
1. It is not difficult to imagine how offensive this campaign must be to fat people or parents of fat children.
2. This organization seems very strange. It is pleasing to see that they appear to have no endorsement from either government or any reputable health promotion bodies.
3. The lack of health care representatives on their advisory board is telling.
4. There are numerous errors of fact on their website (obesity as a risk factor for osteoporosis, for example. It is the opposite).
5. Individual-level (“agentic”) health promotion campaigns are not only outmoded and ineffective, but in fact serve to widen health inequalities. Progress in this area requires an ability to engage in nuanced (and sometime paradoxical) thought – while this is clearly beyond the capacity of the talkback radio sphere, one hopes that governments, or those who advise them, might one day learn this lesson.
Thanks Sam. It is terrific (and reassuring) when we have medical profs commenting on these sorts of initiatives. I really believe that one day there will be a tipping point of sorts with obesity and we will realise that blaming and shaming is not that helpful in trying to improve peoples health.
Thanks heaps again!
S
I was speechless when I saw this this morning, I’m still struggling to find words. As a fat parent of fat kids I am so angry and so afraid of how all this vicious bullshit will affect them. One thing is for sure, any shop I see with one of those donation boxes will lose my business permanently. (They’d better not turn up at Woolies ’cause that’d be a right royal pain in the bum!)
This makes me just want to cry. It is totally sanctioned bullying.
Agreed.
What a load of crap. Sam is it possible to challenge these people who are behind this campaign? I am sick of being the whipping boy of anything that ails society.
I am very, very big-unhealthy big but have not succumbed to one common disease of obesity-diabetes. No matter how big I have gotten they keep testing and I dont have it.
A doctor told me a while ago now that I dont deserve to be so healthy with my massive problEM.I am far from healthy at my size, but they are so wrong with some things.
Jan I’m the same – medical professionals (though not my lovely GP) keep looking for diabetes with me, and can’t find it. Same goes for high blood pressure, heart disease and cholesterol issues. I’m such a disappointment to the medical profession!
Same…. They insist I MUST have one of these things and when tests come back so positively healthy, they are flabbergasted. Loads of us fatties are in the same boat. I’m not justifying myself, it simply is what it is. Grates though doesn’t it?
Yes Annie it does and I love it when they see the results haha
Kath I do have other health issues unfortunatley but diabetes is not one of them.
So do I Jan – but you know, we’re supposed to have ALL those things, according to the Obesity Prevention Australia folks.
“A doctor told me a while ago now that I dont deserve to be so healthy with my massive problEM.”
That’s just … ugly.
Not to mention, imo, massively unprofessional.
I want to send an image of my belly with the words NO EXCUSES OBESITY PREVENTION AUSTRALIA emblazoned across it.
Or better yet NO EXCUSES FOR FAT SHAME OBESITY PREVENTION AUSTRALIA
I love this idea!
I will do it if you will. We could have a whole blog of NO FAT SHAME on our bellies pictures!
I saw one of those top ones (Child Obesity is Childhood Abuse) at the pharmacy the other day with a collection tin. I raised an eyebrow and commented to the sales clerk “Haven’t seen that before, bit risible isn’t it?” She rolled her eyes and nodded, then said, “What the hell, the manager has a bee in her bonnet about fat kids. It’s all a beat up if you ask me. Not all fat people are sick, we get tonnes of sick skinnies in here!” In-DEED.
The whole site and project makes me sick. It’s just more moralising of thinness and scare tactics.
Personally, I’d like to see someone with the skills to do so, follow the money trail for this “organisation”.
I am not sure why an ice-cream shop (someone else mentioned another food vendor had them too) would actually allow these to be displayed in their shop. Surely they’re doing them out of money? How many people buy the small diet yoghurt and then put the change in the tin?
I’d like to say to this “Obesity Prevention Australia” that I am a sufferer of childhood abuse. I was dieted from as early as I could remember, humiliated, beaten and bullied about my weight, even before I got fat. Guess what? I still got fat. All I have to show for it is PTSD from years and years of REAL child abuse.
It is nothing more than discrimination, bigotry and ignorance.
Sad to hear your story Kath, glad you shared though because hearing it has got me back in touch with my WHY. I have been feeling a little frustrated and sad as I have been struggling with people who just don’t get it and who are critical and questioning of what I do. I have been wondering if I should stop my coaching and get a real job without the angst. Today with this post, thanks Sam, and all the amazing comments by yourself and others I feel that this message is so needed and I am back to promoting my business.
Wow, i am really shocked at this and cant believe how little we seem to have progressed and seemingly how little we have learned from the tobacco campaigns… we know this kind of shock tactic just doesnt work. Epic FAIL!
YEYEYEYEYEYEY!!
Welcome to Discourse hubby!
This is a horrible campaign. Thank you, Samantha, for speaking out and providing this discussion.
I can’t believe this isn’t already happening in the US. Fat-hatred, like Smugness, is a national pasttime here.
In all seriousness though… Awful.
Image 4:
Picture of a dead THIN person, is that a diet suggestion?
Given that one of OPAs mantras White Bread killing you, maybe this is a white bread eater?
Image Six:
I want to put Hamburgers in them.
Aside from anything else, wow, that is one crappy website. The menus have terrible usability, and it’s full of accessibility fail (I guess people with disability don’t matter to the OPA people).
I read their prospectus. It sucked too. Who wrote it? Their motto is: The Habits We Create, Determine OUR FUTURE [sic]. It’s so amateurish to have that kind of poor writing, and as your motto, no less! I was waiting excitedly for the Word clipart but I was already overwhelmed by the iStockphoto images which are entirely of white, thin people and have been used a million times before.
Ok, that’s my web designer and writer snark over.
So, if they’re so concerned about obesity, then how come there appears to be no place for the voices of fat people, even ones who want to lose weight? It’s also ironic that they link to this article: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-stigma-heavily-obese-people-contributing.html because they completely and utterly miss the point. It’s all incredibly patronising and looks like nothing more than people trying to justify their own anti-fat attitudes.
I am speechless too, however not without an intense burning desire to pick up that money tin and break it over the head of the creator of this farce.
The fail. It BUUUUURRRRRRNNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSS!
why don’t you all just hold a DOS attack of the website? there are spam bots that can access the site 1000 times a minuet. if you all use one the server will crash.
Not sure that is something we want to advocate for Montork!
I actually see websites like this as being an extremely helpful way of highlighting how ridiculous our approach to obesity is becoming. I think this approach is disgraceful towards everyone – fat and thin! One of the things that has been extremely encouraging to me is how widespread the condemnation of the way in which this not-for-profit is going about things. I think no matter what your perspective on obesity, you can probably see that this is pretty unhelpful!
Hope to see you here again!
S
Sam, I think that’s a great point to bring up, and I’d even like to see a future post on it — that these horrific, over-the-top sites (and campaigns, and TV shows) can work to our favor: they prove that most outrage over fat is much more deeply rooted in some visceral disgust and ingrained bigotry than some valid concern for health.
i suppose, i only sugested that because most of the people who will see these sites wont know that its bullshit and agree with them.
Wow. I think everyone above has commented or brought up thoughts I had. But WTF. Seriously. These campaigns are going to backfire into more self esteem issues, body image issues, feeding the thin ideals, and increase the already high disordered eating. And to think the damn diet industry has the MOST TO GAIN in all of this shit. curse words are flying through my head.
I took the shot of the money can. I couldn’t believe it, and at an ice cream shop of all places!!!
I tried to take it with me but it was chained to the countertop. I am tempted to call the manager of the shop and ask them to remove it, so offensive.
Interesting the site is a .com and not a .org but they claim to be a not for profit.
I have written to the Advertising Standards Bureau and below is part of my submission. I encourage you all to do the same.
“My daughter had a friend with her who is overweight, her whole family is. I have friends who’s kids are fat. To have an advertising campaign that brands parents as abusers for something not illegal is SO OFFENSIVE!
The little girl with us was old enough to read it, old enough to be hurt, but no old enough to understand how on earth that kind of defamation is allowed to an entire section of the community.
I ask you to imagine if the advert said: “parents who don’t have private health insurance are child abusers” would THAT be ok?
The words “child abuse” are directly related to the legal system. There is no legal precedence for this to be based in any kind of reality.
I don’t see why I need to be confronted with this kind of defamation when I am buying my kids an ice cream. “
Kate, you do you have address for the Advertising Standards Bureau? I know others wanted to write as well.
S
Here’s the web address. http://www.adstandards.com.au/
There is a list of questions you have to answer correctly to get through to actually make the complaint.
You can’t complain just because you think the content of the advert is incorrect. That’s why I took the legal option, child abuse is a legal term and there for it’s defamation, accusing an entire group of people of a crime without a reason or back up.
Hope that helps! Someone may have another way of dealing with the ‘but it’s wrong’ issue.
xxk
The use of scare tactics and shock value is absolutely appalling and disgusting. I mean, childhood obesity is child abuse!?! What the actual fuck?!?
Fucksticks. I have no words. I’m currently on a cardiothoracic ward for my nursing training. Out of our 22 (in theory 21, but we have a store room which we use with alarming regularity) bed ward, only two of our patients are classified as “bariatric” (i use this word in the medical sense). These are people with triple bypasses, who have extensive cholesterol build up in their arteries, high blood pressure, etc. etc. etc. The only reason we take weights is for the anaethatist to know how much of the anasthetic to give them to knock them out!!! I really feel like I’m on what would be considered “the front line” – if all of what this campagin is saying it’s correct. But I’m telling you (and them) that it isn’t the case.
They’re idiots. Shanon Ponton has rocks in his brain.