What's your opinion on "scaring" people into living a healthy lifestyle?

No. I remember being a smoker and watching all the scary ads about how it would kill me and reaching for my cigarettes. I think people have an immense capacity for denial. “That won’t ever happen to me”.

I had a lady working for me and she told me she had tried to enrol in a gym but her blood pressure was higher than 170 over something. I was like .. whoa, you need to go to your doctor. She didn’t. She has children but she just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. I haven’t seen her for a while but I hope she did get that checked out. Denial…

‘Scaring’ the general public seems to be very effective for politicians!

There’s nothing like the unexpected death of a celebrity to scare people into addressing health issues in their lives.

I’ve been turned off by scary ads too, but I’ve also positively responded to ads when I had niggling doubts about my health.

Recommending medical check ups and changing lifestyles is what the AHA does, along with numerous other organizations. I assume they get sufficient results to justify their efforts. People will hear the message when they are ready to hear it.

When was the last time you saw an anti-smoking ad that didn’t try to scare you out of smoking?
They use it because it is effective.

Tough love can sometimes be both both necessary and effective. I’m not one who believes we’re all so wise, informed and conscientious about our health and safety that we don’t sometimes need to be “scared” into doing what’s best for us.

I know there are plenty of people who disagree with me, but I’m thankful for seatbelts, bike helments, safety standards for toys and so many other life savers that we wouldn’t have if not for that.

How’s this for a graphic way to scare people out of driving drunk? It’s actual footage from an actual British public service commercial. SOmetimes the truth is harsh, but it’s better to know the truth than to live in a world sheltered by pleasant falsehoods.

The cigaret packets have REALLY gross pictures of dead and dying people on them, toe fungus, yellow babies etc. You have to know the name of what you want because they all look the same. I don’t know if it scares people because there’s still alot of smokers.

I vaguely remember people saying scare tactics didn’t work with deterring people from smoking. This is going back to the 70’s and 80’s. They showed us pictures of lungs that were all damaged and people with breathing problems. I don’t know if there was some scientific study that analyzed it, or just that people were still smoking in droves. I think probably making it socially unacceptable is what really changed people’s smoking habits, and laws prohibiting it possibly helped.

To me scaring and providing information are not necessarily the same though. I am all for women knowing heart disease hits 1 in 3 women and more women die from heart disease every year than all cancers combined. People do need to take heart disease more seriously, and they might if they knew the statistics. Women walk around worried about breast cancer, but feel little power over preventing it. Although, being healthy, eating well, probably helps prevent it to some extent. Heart disease they can feel a little more power over by eating right and checking their blood pressure. Blood pressure is a very big deal in contributing to heart disease and another thing people can kind of sort of chalk up to bad luck in their minds and just pop a pill. I think people are more willing to pop the blood pressure pill than change their diet. I hope I am wrong.

If I had my own way that kind of commercial would be illegal, along with other bottom of the barrel tactics such as telemarketing.

Everyone knows what smoking will do to you, everyone knows what eating McDonalds constantly will do to you. My body, my life, my choice, so fuck off, if you don’t like it you don’t have to do it, but leave me alone.

Personally, had I been in the crowd, I would have ordered a nice big soda and 2 hot dogs, then I’d look up who the guy in the commercial is, and mail him the empty wrappers along with a set of instructions on how to go fuck himself.

I saw a no smoking one recently, talking about how every cigarette you smoke, could be the cigarette that kills you. Yet in the commercial, there was an actor who was smoking, so I guess it is okay to risk that actors life, who cares if the cigarette they had him smoke in take 34 was the one that killed him, so long as he puts out their cheap scare tactic video for them they are happy.

The people who actually put effort in to making these commercials and campaigns are probably the same people who show up to protests of 3 or 4 people that no one gives a fuck about. The same kind of people who are just desperate to be an authority figure of some kind, but because they are practically useless at everything and generally unwanted people, they direct their energy in to scare tactic adverts.

This is kind of a hate-hobby for me, I have been known to troll/spam people who put out these commercials, the latest one I trolled was a video of some woman with a voice box talking about how bad smoking is. (in case no one has heard yet)

Anyway, there is an easy solution for the smoking health problems, if you are a guy, get the packs that say there is risk of damage to your fetus, if you are a gal get the ones that say they will damage your sperm.

It’s not a very good marketing strategy to discourage people from buying food at your venue, that’s for sure. What a bummer…attending a baseball game should be fun.

@poisonedantidote Back when the Surgeon General in America was already saying smoking was unhealthy and putting messages on cigarette packs the tobacco companies were still trying to say it wasn’t true. My dad says back in the 60’s and 70’s he really didn’t think it was that bad. He ironically actually worked for the Surgeon General starting in 1977 for many years. He was in denial for several years towards the end I would say, and then eventually in the early 80’s he did quit. Anyway, the reason everyone knows that smoking is bad for you is because people talked and talked and talked about it. Then there were some lawsuits. All sorts of stuff had to happen. Including of course scientific studies to help prove the connection. Now, I find people to be incredibly ignorant about heart disease and what food is good, what food is bad.

A friend of mine just yesterday said shrimp has good cholesterol. Not it doesn’t. I guess he is thinking it has some good fats like fish like salmon has, but shrimp has a lot of cholesterol, it does have omega 3 oils, considered a good fat, but it still will probably raise your cholesterol if cholesterol is a problem for the individual. This same friend, his wife who is the one with high cholesterol says she watches what she eats, won’t eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, but then eats a cheese plate for an appetizer and duck for an entree when we are out, or similar. That all probably had triple the cholesterol of an McD cheeseburger and fries. I bet money she has never looked up how much cholesterol is in duck, or anything else she believes to be a better for you food.

So, heart disease people need to prbably start talking and talking and talking about what is good and bad to finally get a change. Or, we can go the route of Mayor Bloomberg and parts of Europe and just make certain foods and sizes of portions illegal. I’d rather not over legislate things.

@poisonedantidote I respect your right to do what you please with your body. But why is it libertarians routinely claim the right to their own decisions as a way of censoring other people’s decisions? Why can’t the people that want to make scare tactic commercials say, my air time, my creative instinct, my message, so switch channels if you don’t like seeing it?

Excellent necessary approach. Like writing ‘smoking causes erectile dysfunction and impotence’ on cigarette packs.