Hard Hitting Anti-Obesity Campaign in Georgia
Georgia is making a strong effort to curb childhood obesity. They have a controversial new campaign using of black-and-white images and commercials of overweight kids that some critics are claiming is too much and could cause additional stigma to obese children. Maybe, but at least it isn’t a “food insecurity” commercial showing how hungry the kids are. Where is the info to back that up, anyway? Georgia has nearly one million overweight or obese kids and these videos are right on the mark. If you watch the video above at YouTube you can see more of them right next to this one. Anyway, this campaign has billboards, commercials, and print ads that have sparked some controversy but I think it may just work. The article referenced here is where I found this info. It was a good one but I think the last quote by Marsha Davis, a child obesity prevention researcher at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, was an accidental slip:
“I think it’s really brave to talk about the elephant in the room,” she told the AJC after the campaign launched.
Yeah, if I was her, I wouldn’t be using that line again.
I come from a long line of “large,” people. I have fought my weight all my life, and it never, never seems to get better. I am careful, and think about every single bite I put in my mouth, and now that I am over 65, I find that I’m supposed to gt a minimum of one hour of “strenuous,” exercise every day to keep my weight down. When, exactly, am I supposed to live my life? I already take care of three horses, twenty-five chickens, and a twelve hour a night job. I am frustrated by the whole thing, because I just can-NOT get it right! And I cannot control my genetics.
So why are we so eager to blame fat people for their health problems and our health care spending, but not physically inactive people? Why if I’ve been discriminated against all my life and have had to struggle with joint pain do you think reminding me I might not live as long as you or that you don’t enjoy sharing in the costs of my knee replacement (even though I’m paying for your many years of social security checks) will change my “bad behavior”? Why does the nutrition research industry and average everyday confused Americans and doctors who’ve never looked at any scientific research on the topic think they know what I should eat, when 40 years of following their advice has made me fatter and two months of eating low glycemic index foods (nuts, cheese, fried foods, meat, and the occasional plain fruit or vegetable) has made me thinner?
Maybe we should learn more before we tell people what to do or blame them. As far as I can tell we’ve only proven that calories matter, and no one is researching what foods will make a person function well on less calories and if it’s different for different people. But still we promote the myth that it’s food choices and not calories. I also doubt that we’ve actually proven that small decreases in calories matter – or small increases in exercise for that matter. If it were true one less mouthful a day or one more flight of stairs would make everyone skinny in a year or two. And why is it that neoroscientists believe there’s such a thing as relative hypoglycemia but nutritionists don’t? The former have proven our brians function better if supplemented with glucose when overworked. Why has no one researched the effect of adrenaline on glycogen stores? I’m almost positive mine get depleted with a couple hours of that hormone raging through my body, as has happened almost daily every phase of my life where I’ve gained weight. Don’t get me wrong. I think the kid asking “why am I fat” ad is genious. Let’s not assume we know the answer though.
Funny, well not so funny. Last year I moved from the ‘city’ in our small county to a rural mountain community and noticed there were almost no fat adults or children! Go back 25 miles to the land of fast food places and almost all of them are fat! Gee five fast food places or more for a population of 15,000. The county seat is just as bad or worse 6-7 fast food places for 4,700 pop. I think the government should look into this could tere be a relationship between fast food and obesity?
One thing I always wonder is why it’s okay to put images of lip cancer and diseased lungs on posters to stomp smoking, but pictures of ugly fat people is a no-no.