Seriously, how is anyone dumb enough to be fat?

[Aractus]

See what you make of this ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82kYQ7j7X2s

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I don't think it's a very effective ad. There's a few reasons I say that, but it comes down to consequences and actions - it purports to show the action of feeding your child junk, but doesn't show the consequence. It would have been more powerful if at the end of the ad when the hamburger appears the child was suddenly visibly obese.

But even so it doesn't show the action of bad dieting either - it shows a child eating a hamburger, as a meal, not snacking on potato chips, not gorging on an adult-sized take away meal with chips and coke. In fact an 8 year old boy needs 1850 calories per day, and a traditional McDonald's happy meal contains: cheeseburger (282 Cal), small fries (255 Cal) and small coke (102 Cal) which is 639 calories in total - just over 1/3rd of his daily needs, so they haven't even chosen an option that is actually considerably unhealthy. McDonald's now has more options than when I was a child including fruit instead of fries (37 calories instead of 255). If the kid was eating a full Pizza Hut pizza that'd be a different issue.

So I don't think it's a very good ad because it doesn't at all correctly target the problem - which comes down to portion sizes and eating a balanced diet - and quite frankly a balanced diet can include a happy meal every day for the kid!

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