#47

Not here to speculate wildly, TBH, just pointing out a campaign that is negative in style isn’t their best one historically

#48

Yeah CRUK do that https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/cancer-research-uk-argues-link-tv-ads-childhood-obesity/1454580 - they employ a lot of staff in their Campaigns Team for precisely that. CRUK have a duty to push for government level AND individual level change. Obviously how they do that is up for debate.

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#49

Mission statement

“We want survival in the UK to be among the best in the world. We’re focusing our efforts in four key areas – working to help prevent cancer, diagnose it earlier, develop new treatments and optimise current treatments by personalising them and making them even more effective”

This advertising is clearly aimed at 1 and 2

#50

What people are missing here is that the medical approach to obesity/weight is not just people’s feelings being hurt - @dingaling has posted upthread about her godmother’s death being due to weight related misdiagnosis, and BMI continues to be a large part of how we view our health even though its usefulness has largely been debunked (one of my ATDs is doing a PhD in nutrition/obesity studies). Yeah weight can be and often is a factor in ill health, but fixating on it to the detriment of other factors can kill as well.

I don’t specifically have an issue with the campaign or raising awareness even though I don’t know how effective it will be (if you are obese then chances are you already know there are lots of increased health risks), but it is important to know that the NHS continues to promote BMI despite it being largely unhelpful, and for people to question why it keeps running with it in spite of this.

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#51

This is nothing to do with the nhs

#52

Yes BUT IT’S FUCKING ADVERTISING.

If I want to advertise McDonald’s to people I don’t say, “Come and eat here because it’s the best you can hope to afford” because it’s a really shit way to make a point when the people you’re trying g to reach are also the people you rely on for money.

#53

You’re fucking weird mate

#55

But do you think that a risk to public health shouldn’t be publicised because of that? To me it would seem negligent to take a selective approach.

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#57

Kind of feel like you stopped just as this post was getting interesting. Care to explain that final bit?

#58

You didn’t really answer my question there.

And by the way I do see your point, I just think spreading awareness is more important.

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#59

The TV (who is a clinical biochemist fwiw) has been doing a lot of reading around this recently. She tells me that there is increasing evidence that we need to untangle correlation from causation with respect to a lot of the health issues thought to be caused by obesity. e.g. the impact of dieting (to lose weight you need to give your body fewer calories than it wants and often end up on very restrictive nutritional regimes) and particularly yo-yo dieting and, per @dingaling the impact of stress. BMI is a very reductive way of looking at it. That’s not to say that the CRUK stuff is wrong, but as a society we need to get much smarter about untangling correlation from causation with regards to obesity.

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#60

Absolutely, that’s the case with all epidemiological research. But there is enough evidence there already that it can’t be ignored. I work in a cancer centre full of world renowned researchers and physicians, and I can guarantee you that if I put this argument to them their jaws would hit the floor.

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#61

Not chiming in cause I don’t have much knowledge on either side but would like to say how nice it is that we can now get 60 posts into an obviously incredibly emotive topic without anyone making a massive arse of themselves

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#62

Weighing in :joy:
Think you’ve just done it :+1:t2:

#63

Honestly can’t imagine having an issue with this, as someone who has often been overweight and probably is (?/don’t care) now.
As a smoker for a number of years I was bombarded with smoking kills, you’re at risk of cancer etc and didn’t have an issue with it…because…I…was. Yes, there are a number of factors in why someone is obese, doesn’t stop it being a aggravating factor in your risk of getting cancer and if a cancer research charity wants to publicise that, then fine.

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#64

Just want to say right now that fat people know being fat is bad for them

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#65

Sake. Edited

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#66

They’re not looking at this poster and going oh shit I’ll just stop being fat then

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#67

I reckon a more progressive/useful thing the cancer charity could’ve done is partnered with a nutritional organisation and said hey here’s some dietary tips that might help someone cut down (because as we know obesity causes cancer)

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#68

They’ll be doing that already

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