Thursday, October 10, 2013

Toned Down Advertisement Not Effective

The way this graphic ad, including “photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples” depicting the increased health risks of diabetes and asthma without breastfeeding, designed by the HHS was water[ed] down with less offensive images seemed to defeat the purpose of this ad. 

Opposition from the formula companies, Joseph Levitt (former director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition food safety center), and Clayton Yeutter (an agriculture secretary under the Bush administration). 

The milder images included dandelions and cherry-topped ice-cream scoops meant to dramatize the increased risk of respiratory issues and obesity without breastfeeding. This change of content obviously did not reach or affect mothers as intended according to statistics collected in Abbott Nutrition’s Ross Mother’s Survey of the proportions of mothers who breastfeed between the years of 2002 to 2006, mothers who breastfeed in the hospital after their babies were born dropped from “70 percent on 2002 to 63.6 percent in 2006”.


I think that these images were intense but striking enough to get their scientifically proven point across to new mothers. 

No comments:

Post a Comment