If the result is the one you want, does it matter how you get there?

The New York Times Parenting blog points to an interesting new public service announcement running in New York. The PSA encourages moms to breastfeed. But the enticement is not the health benefits for the baby. The enticement to breastfeed is that many women who breastfeed lose weight.

So the question is whether it is appropriate to entice an audience to engage in a behavior for vanity? It's not unheard of. Anti-smoking campaigns have used the approach. And breastfeeding campaigns might also mention other reasons for breastfeeding that have nothing to do with the baby's health: such as monetary savings. If a health campaign is successful in getting an audience to engage in a health behavior, does the why matter?

small steps not enough?

The Ad Council is running a series of public service announcements encouraging people to take small steps to combat obesity. But at least one doctor from Center for Science in the Public Interest thinks the ads don't go far enough to address the serious consequences of obesity, especially compared to the gruesome anti-smoking ads that are now commonplace.



What do you think?

I first heard about this story from The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=679370