Promoting Health or Stigmatization?

I came across an interesting health promotion initiative from the state of Georgia that I found very startling. Strong4Life (a campaign brought to Columbus by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Live Healthy Columbus to address the issue of childhood obesity) has released an add campaign with photos of obese children with captions such as "Chubby isn't cute if it leads to type two diabetes"; and "Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid". The idea behind the campaign is to educate parents of the childhood obesity epidemic in Georgia. Georgia (which has the second highest state childhood obesity rate in the nation) is, according to Strong4Life, lacking in parental awareness of the prevalence and knowledge of childhood obesity and their understanding of healthy eating and active living for children.


The campaign, however, has been fraught with controversy with many activist and opposers calling the campaign "bullying, cruel, and potential sources of stigmatization that may reinforce unhealthy behaviours and potentially pose risks to the psychological health of over weight adolescents."


While I feel that attempting to address the causes and perceptions of childhood obesity is extremely important, I have to admit that I found the posters disturbing. After going to the website and watching the linked videos of the children in the campaign speaking about their learning and journey towards a healthier lifestyle, I can appreciate what Strong4Life is doing for their community, though I worry that the sensationalism of the campaign may serve more to alienate overweight children and their families than encourage them. It will be interesting to see if an evaluation or assessment of the program will be published as to the effectiveness of the posters and social media campaign.


Above all, this campaign makes me wonder if scare tactics and shock value are useful tools in health education and promotion. Though if nothing else, this campaign has people talking about health perception and behaviours and perhaps the old adage is true, any publicity is good publicity.


http://strong4life.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16958865
http://www.facebook.com/S4LGA