Public health scare campaigns do not help obese, research finds

Research found that continuous warning from the Public health campaign have no significant effect on helping obese people to lose weight. Interview result of 142 adult with overweight problems indicated that they felt ashamed, humiliated and insulted by government health campaigns. Particularly the advertisement about the health council related the increased waist size will consequently lead to higher risk of getting cancer diseases.

Dr. Thomas said that causes of people with obese problems can be complex and different from each others, not only because of laziness and consuming the wrong foods. The campaigns also instilled the public with a mistaken opinion that overweight people are unhealthy, Dr. Thomas pointed out.

While, Craig Sinclair, director of the Cancer Prevention Centre at Cancer Council Victoria on the other hand defended the campaigns by saying that they have social obligation to arouse consciousness of public the risk of being obese and the its connection with cancer diseases.