Updated
The Heart Foundation is defending a confrontational ad campaign in the face of a social media storm over suggestions people who do not look after their heart health therefore do not love their families.
Key points:
- The ad features a mother telling a child she was lying when she told him she loved him
- It has been criticised for lacking sensitivity and blaming people for their illnesses
- The Heart Foundation said the campaign was justified because 51 people died from the disease daily
The campaign, called Heartless Words, features a scene in which a mother puts her child to bed at night and says, “Every time I told you I loved you I was lying — you are not my priority”.
A man washing dishes with his wife tells her, “I promised you my heart and I’ve given it away”, and a woman speaking to a young child says, “Because it’s not just my heart that I don’t care about, it’s yours”.
The campaign has been criticised by some health professionals and sparked outrage online, including from people who had lost loved ones to the disease.
On Twitter, one man who said his wife had died after a sudden heart attack wrote:
“I don’t want our son watching or hearing this type of rubbish advertising. His mother loved him very much and this insensitive vile is a disgrace to your organisation.”
Another wrote:
“My dad was a health & fitness fanatic who had regular checks to ensure his heart was healthy. He died from a myocardial infarction at 66. His last words to me were ‘I love you’. But I guess he didn’t love me enough.
“I get the intent but the execution is breathtakingly offensive.”
‘Complacency requires us to have this conversation’
Melbourne University youth mental health professor Patrick McGorry, a founding director of Headspace, said the campaign represented classic victim-blaming.
“So people are to blame for their illness? That’s been precisely the basis for stigma in mental illness and addictions,” he said on Twitter.
“Same for suicidal patients in EDs where they are blamed and put to the back of the queue.”
Sue Walker, the head of obstetrics at the University of Melbourne and Mercy Hospital, told ABC Radio Melbourne it was “a little bit reductionist to suggest that people died because they didn’t care for themselves or they didn’t care for others”.
Dr Walker, whose father died of heart disease, said:
“To have a voice from the grave suggesting he died because he didn’t care for himself or for us perhaps lacks a little sensitivity.”
Heart Foundation CEO John Kelly said, with 51 people dying from heart disease every day, the campaign was justified and necessary.
“Two thirds of Australians have three or more risk factors so it goes beyond that. The evidence is quite overwhelming,” Professor Kelly told ABC Radio Melbourne.
“The level of complacency requires us to get this conversation going.
“Some people will take offence and we apologise for that. But the level of complacency requires us to have this conversation.”
Topics:
information-and-communication,
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