Can someone change all the TV commercials about diabetes?

With all the talk about blood sugar, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, vision problems (including blindness), amputations and impotence, my self-esteem is really taking a beating. Sure, taking better care of myself would help, but why aren’t these advertisers considering how I feel about myself?

That’s to say nothing of the advertisements meant to persuade people to quit smoking, exercise more often, try to regain their hair or, for what’s left, to color it. The advertising world isn’t easy on those of us in middle age.

Common sense says someone with the above issues should do more to take care of himself. And the advertisements are a reminder of the ugly consequences of what ails a person, and they serve as some motivation to act responsibly, if not vainly, on one’s own behalf.

The way the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance sees it, though, folks like me could use a hug, some kinder, gentler advertising and probably a good helping of comfort food. The California-based association hasn’t gotten around to my issues, as it is focusing on the potential hurt feelings billboards and signs in the Cincinnati area might have on overweight children.

The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance has asked a Cincinnati-area organization to take down advertisements depicting overweight children. The ads on billboards and bus shelters show chubby children biting into hamburgers and fried foods with the question: “Are we feeding our kids to death?” The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. It seems a fair question, but the ads unfairly subject fat children to ridicule, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance frets.

“Something like that only gives them justification to say, ‘See? Your body is bad. You’re ugly. You need to change,’ ” association spokeswoman Peggy Howell told the Cincinnati paper.

Well, two out of three of those statements are accurate. Kids being kids, they’re going to taunt someone with an obvious difference, obesity being an easy target. Teach the other kids to be more tolerant, sure. But does anyone want to argue that overeating doesn’t make your body bad, or that children who eat too many fatty foods without getting enough exercise don’t need to change?

To its credit, The Center for Closing the Health Gap isn’t backing off its campaign. The ads are meant as a wake-up call for parents to get their children off the couch and away from fried foods, Executive Director Dwight Tillery said.

“This is a disease, and it’s not funny, and what it’s doing to our children is not funny,” Tillery said.

Tillery’s concern — even if he’s misdiagnosing sloth and overindulgence in children as a disease — is legitimate. Childhood obesity has been linked to diabetes and heart disease, he points out.

That poor parenting can lead to diseases doesn’t make it a disease anymore than a growing number of people being overweight makes that an epidemic. They all certainly are part of an ongoing problem. The National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance, which bills itself as an organization to protect the rights and improve the quality of life for fat people, apparently is more worried about other people’s perceptions than the health of those the group means to help.

The reality is that, billboards or no, children who are overweight are going to be picked on. Some of them do have medical conditions that lead to their weight problems. Many do not. But skinny kids get picked on, too.

And you don’t ignore the health problems many of these children will suffer because of their diets and lack of exercise just so they feel better about themselves for now. They’d feel much better eating healthy and exercising.

Ronald Lederman Jr. is editorial page editor of The Lima (Ohio) News. E-mail him at rlederman@limanews.com.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.