Obesity is a Menace?

The media is bigoted. Corporations will stop at nothing to make it's consumer buy their products. And so it is understandable they try to use idealized visions of beauty to victimize obesity. But what happens when there are associations who decide to make advertisements on what is beauty? Whether they have good intentions or not, they're not selling a product, they are selling an opinion. They are using worse scare-tactics on an audience that should have the freedom to decide how they conduct their lives.

Child obesity is a problem in the United States. And as this advertisement is trying to "warn," it is the parent's fault. However, this is then turned into a one sided view of parenting, and how it's meant to be run. It's not because our nation is surrounded by large serving sizes, fast food, and consumerism that our country is filled with child obesity, but it's because of  our country's bad parenting, according to this advertisement.

In this advertisement, the girl is antagonized as being a criminal and menace to society. The picture is black and white, she's wearing gender neutral clothing, she's crossing her arms, frowning, and has a bland hairstyle, all in an attempt to show she's some sort of convict of beauty. Then in big red, dangerous letters, it says "WARNING," as though this girl has committed some sort of felony. But the injustice doesn't stop there; this advertisement has a double meaning when it says, "It's hard to be a little girl if you're not." Because this is a visual ad, and not some form of letter, or activism towards corporations, this message intended for the people who feed the girl: her parents. Now the "WARNING" also has a double meaning, because now it is warning parents that this is what their kids may become. Because of this double meaning, now the advertisement's main audience, the American people, will see fat children as a menace to society, and then the parents of these children as the creators of this menace. Socially, this ad is creating more harm, than good, through all the hatred it is spreading.

This advertisement is bigoted propaganda at its finest. Although child obesity is a health problem in the United States, making ads for the sole purpose of making society more insecure is neither helping the American ideology, and the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, the association who created this advertisement if you were to look closely at the small letters, carry out their social goal of bettering society. Because obesity is such a sensitive subject, ad agencies shouldn't scare people into fixing social problems, but instead go about it in a more encouraging, mindful manor.