‘Why I’m calling out Cancer Research UK’s obesity ad campaign’

You can’t have failed to spot Cancer Research UK’s (CRUK) latest ad campaign, occupying a billboard or bus stop near you, drawing parallels between smoking, obesity, and cancer risk.

I’m part of a group, which includes researchers from University of Bristol, UWE’s Centre for Appearance Research and many others, who are calling CRUK to account. We know the campaign is negatively affecting people – the people it’s ostensibly supposed to help.

The ad seems to be based on a belief that if people know the risk, they can do something about it. But the risks associated with weight and heart disease or type 2 diabetes are well known, and yet obesity is increasing. A lack of knowledge clearly isn’t the problem.

In reality, this campaign gives society another stick to beat people at higher weights.

Leaving aside the differences between causation and association, or the murkiness of the evidence around obesity and cancer, we should examine CRUK’s moral responsibility. They aren’t releasing this into a neutral vacuum.

Both people who smoke and people who have higher weight are treated with disapproval in our society. In putting the two together, CRUK creates a perfect storm of negative associations.

Weight stigma is woven through our culture, from Fatty in The Beano, to Phil Daniels in Parklife proclaiming “you should cut down on your porklife mate”. The CRUK campaign feeds these deeply held prejudices.

One common prejudice is that both issues are a matter of willpower and individual choice. When This Morning covered it, Philip Schofield said with furrowed brow: “You choose the amount you eat”.

But over the last generation, our environment has changed beyond recognition, with jobs, food, transport and social structures that contribute to obesity. Weight is influenced by a web of factors, including genetics, social and economic status, medication, hormones and psychology.

The ads, which resemble old-fashioned cigarette packets, are on billboards throughout the city. Photo by Zoe Trinder-Widdess

Media coverage of our counter-campaign boils down to a narrative of offence and ‘fat shaming’. But it’s not just that CRUK’s ad upsets people.

It reinforces messages about the relative worth of people based on their body size, narratives that make people feel miserable in their own skin and give others licence to criticise them. Narratives that stop people accessing healthcare. With a well-respected charity reinforcing these messages, weight stigma is legitimised.

Our group has heard many stories of how this campaign is affecting people. Children are being bullied, being told they are going to die from cancer.

It’s affected people with eating disorders and people who have gained weight thanks to medication. It’s triggered the nicotine receptors of people who’ve given up cigarettes.

CRUK’s aim is to change government policy on junk food advertising to children. It’s true that only government policy can address these issues. But why not demand better walking and cycling infrastructure, or a subsidy on fresh fruit and vegetables? It’s a goal that indicates just how much CRUK want obesity to fit their smoking template.

If government is their target, why an expensive public facing campaign? CRUK argue that to affect policy, they must raise public awareness. But fuelling obesity stigma doesn’t have to be a secondary outcome.

Last year I ran a riposte to CRUK’s 2018 ‘OB_S_ _Y’ campaign, which drew their attention. A group of us visited them to explain weight stigma and advise them how to do better. But in running this latest iteration, it seems CRUK are comfortable to further stigmatise people to achieve their campaign’s aims. I am not ok with this.

Read our open letter and sign our petition.

Zoe Trinder-Widdess is part of a group running a counter-campaign to CRUK’s latest ad campaign. She is also communications manager at the National Institute for Health Research Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care West.

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