Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Lancet Hates the new UK Obesity Initiative



Can't say I blame them.

Change4Life, the new massive UK initiative to help with their obesity epidemic is being paid for by the very companies that helped bring them their problem.

Big Food's money is supposed to be spent on television advertisements, billboards, and posters with an aim of reducing childhood obesity rates by 2020.

Want to see how the money is being spent? Check out this television spot. Want to guess where my head's at as to whether spots like this will make one whit of difference?



Hopefully as this project grows messages will be more useful than the classically useless, "Eat less, exercise more" message this spot provides and while I'm sure there is some useful information on their website, I did also note their explicit recommendation to swap soft drinks for "unsweetened" fruit juices as part of a, "sugar swap".

Pssst, Change4Life people, there's just as much, if not more sugar in juice than in sodas!

[BTW - check out the neat new feature up above. It's the article from the Lancet as an embedded PDF, use the magnifying glass slider to read]