Restaurant Assn. Calls Obesity Health Problems Hype In Full-Page Ads

[hatrack]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "A group backed by the U.S. food and restaurant industries on Monday launched an advertising campaign aimed at dismissing as hype concerns about the large number of obese Americans. The full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers were inspired by new government data questioning government assertions that obesity causes nearly as many deaths as smoking, according to the Center for Consumer Freedom, which paid for the ads.

The group, based in Washington, does not disclose names of its donors, though spokesman Mike Burita said casual dining restaurant chains "are predominant sources of funding for us." A spokesman for Darden Restaurants Inc., the nation's largest casual dining company and owner of the Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains, could not say whether Darden was among contributors to the group. Applebee's International Inc., another major casual dining chain, also could not say whether it contributes to the group, a spokeswoman said.

The group spent about $600,000 on the ads, which appeared on Monday in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune. Ads are also to run in Newsweek magazine and on billboards in the Washington-area metro system. The campaign, Burita said, was sparked by new statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a unit of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that contradict previous findings from the CDC that obesity was catching up to heart disease as a major cause of death in the United States.

The CDC has said that smoking kills 435,000 Americans a year and that obesity kills close to 400,000 annually. But the NCHS report issued last week cuts that number by 75 percent."

EDIT

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2005-04-25T213714Z_01_N25473325_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-FOOD-ADS-OBESITY-DC.XML

[whistle]

1. Obese Americans? We don't got no obese Americans!.....

....We aren't going to kowtow to no stinkin' obese Americans!

[undergroundpanther]

2. The obesity hype

Is a scam..

I have a feeling while people worry about food obese over size..bashing each other over size(the new face of racism)

We will never get around to focusing on the the real culprit ,dieting/starvation and binge cycles,the chemicals in our food,the stuff like aspartame ,MSG,and the toxins from chemical companies and industry in our air water ,the depleted soil making our food lose vital nutrients,(makes us eat more to get what our body needs) ruining our health slowly poisoning us,mutating our bodies.As long as we attack reach other the people profiting off our misery and /superiority feelings/exploiting us will never be made accountable for the harm they have done.Lets look for the causes of obesity,for real. Curing obesity isn't as simple as ordering and humiliating someone to stop eating and run around cause YOU don't like the way they look..

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
http://jaoii.lunarpages.com/minn.html

[Nihil]

4. Very good ... droll ...

> the depleted soil making our food lose vital nutrients,(makes us eat
> more to get what our body needs)

:rofl:

That is so subtle that people might think you were serious!

... oh ... you were?
:wow:

[vi5]

5. I had no idea....

..when I was 50 lbs. overweight that it was not because I gorged myself on fast food and sweets. It was the depleted soil!!

[Mnemosyne]

6. Thank you underground, for pointing out

the things which cause/effect this problem.

I gained 100# in 5 years on a 600 to 800 cal. diet. I had NO appetite and had to force myself to eat at all. I was not gorging myself in any way. It turns out that I suffer from mercury/chemical/pesticide poisoning and it has damn near destroyed my thyroid. My weight goes up and down all the time, with no changes in my diet, it really sucks!

People can be very cruel. I'm sometimes shocked at the viciousness displayed here on the DU when the subject is obesity. I got so angry last week that I was put on ignore by the shallow poster when I suggested she try to get legislation passed prohibiting fat people from being in public. She didn't like to have to look at them. I'm honored that someone so shallow put me on ignore! People like that I can live without.

I see a sarcastic reply to your post. Ignore those unwilling to educate themselves, I do.

Thanks for the links also.

Take care.

[vi5]

3. This is one of those conservative liberal gray areas...

One one hand we don't like big corporations doing or promoting unhealthy things.

On the other hand we don't like objectification of body types and many favor an "I'm o.k...you're o.k." shiny happy ideal of things.

We are a nation of extremes and people just don't want to hear that just because it's o.k. to not be a size one Barbie or Ken looking person, it's not necessarily healthy or o.k. to be very overweight either.

[maxsolomon]

7. OH PLEASE

if anyone has been remotely paying attention, they've noticed obesity exploding in this country.

walk down the waterfront in seattle & see women weighing 200, 250 lbs. stuffing their faces with massive ice cream cones. their kids are fat too.

those ain't european or asian toursits, they're home grown.

and if you have heavy metal poisoning, your weight issues are an anomaly. most people just eat too fucking much, and portions are absurd at many restaurants, and it certainly IS less pleasant to look at the morbidly obese than fit people.