False advertising and the promotion of fat hatred, gummint division

[firecat]

In New York City, the health department made a scare-mongering ad saying that diabetes can lead to amputations. The ad includes a photograph of a fat man who appears to have an amputated leg; crutches are leaning on the wall behind him.

In the original stock photo, a man with two legs is sitting on a stool (and there are no crutches). The "amputation" was created by Photoshop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/in-health-dept-ad-photoshop-not-diabetes-took-leg.html

I don't care that much about the Photoshop thing, but what bugs me about the ad is that it encourages hatred of fat people. The ad purportedly communicates "If you consume bigger portions of sweetened soda, you'll get fat, and then you'll get diabetes, and then you might need an amputation." But it also communicates "If you see a fat amputee, you can assume that they got that way from drinking too much soda."

I'd like to take the 'shopped photo and make the guy's clothing look camo and change the text to say "The US is engaging in more wars. This can lead to amputations."

Comments

[supergee]

*That's* a logical connection.

[sasha_feather]

Also fear of disability whut.

[firecat]

Yes indeed.

[lilacsigil]

Every war involving wealthy countries brings great advancements in prostheses. Strange, that.

[laughingrat]

Ugh, they have so much to deal with and they decide that hating fat people and kowtowing to the record industry is more important than any of it. WTF.

[firecat]

IKR?

I mean, if they didn't have so much power to make my life suck, I would go "Well, it's not like *I* always get my priorities right." But...

[eggcrack]

How "nice".

I don't seem to be able to open the article again, but I think the ad cropped the man's face out of sight too. Maybe there's nothing weird about that, but it's something that rubs me the wrong way.

[firecat]

They did. And me too. This is a great article about "headless fatty" photos. Once you read it, you'll never be able to unsee them.

http://www.charlottecooper.net/docs/fat/headless_fatties.htm

[eggcrack]

That was so depressing to read. Never unsee them indeed.

[wild_irises]

I care about the Photoshop thing in the sense that they might have had to pay an actual amputee actual money instead of using a stock photo if they'd been honest.

Great post!

[ailbhe]

It would go viral. Do eeet.

[graymalkin13.livejournal.com]

I agree -- it would go viral and make several excellent points at once. Brilliant!

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Excellent idea.

[sabotabby]

Doooo eeeet! That would be so rad.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[usqueba.livejournal.com]

I've seen more slender people w/ diabetes w/ amputations that heavy. Actually, more slender people w/ diabetes in general.

I would think the US military causes a LOT more amputations than diabetes. Hmmm. I wonder.

[firecat]

Brief quacking produced a fact sheet that says otherwise, but the statistics are gathered from hospitals and might not include injuries caused by the US military.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Ooh!  Quacking!  New verb!  And its mobile version came up automatically on my phone and looks great, and now I've added it as a search engine on my phone, too!  Thank you.

[firecat]

Yay, new DuckDuckGo user! Thanks for reminding me to put it onto my phone and iThings too.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was using them already, but hadn't seen "quacking" as a verb, and I like it. And since I read your post on my HP Veer, I clicked on the quacking link and liked the looks of it there (mobile site). And I was describing this to someone else today, and they put it on their phone, too!