"WARNING: It's hard to be a little girl if you're not," reads the caption beneath a picture of a chubby, young girl in one of a series of anti-obesity advertisements by the Strong4Life campaign and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
According to the ABC News report, Georgia placed 2nd worst childhood obesity rates in the U.S. where almost 40 percent of all children are overweight or obese. The even sadder part is that most of the parents there don't even realize their children are overweight or that childhood obesity is a 'problem.' Such stats prompted advertisers to take a tough love approach to educating parents, similar to that of anti-smoking campaigns.
In both print ads and TV commercials, actual overweight Georgian children are depicted with very blunt taglines: "Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid" and "My fat may be funny to you, but it’s killing me."
An approach that is getting mixed reviews. Although Linda Matzigkeit, a senior vice president at Children's Healthcare, defends the need for an "arresting, abrupt campaign," many feel parents and health experts question its effectiveness.
"Blaming the victim rarely helps," says Dr. Miriam Labbok, director for the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "These children know they are fat and that they are ostracized already."
As childhood obesity prevention researcher Marsha Davis put it: "We need to fight obesity, not obese people."
Judge for yourself. Is the campaign hateful or helpful?
It's hard to believe some barbaric acts are still passed off in the name of irreconcilable cultural differences. In the central state of Chhattisgarh, India, a seven-year-old girl was murdered and "her liver offered to the gods" -- in return for a good harvest.
Two men have been arrested (and subsequently confessed) in connection with the ritual sacrifice of Lalita Tati after her body went missing and was later discovered.
Although the practice is illegal, in some districts in India human sacrifices are still made, as they are thought to appease the gods, spirits and deities.
In 2010, a factory worker was found decapitated in a temple in West Bengal, and in 2006, The Guardian reported that a woman and her sons sacrificed a three-year-old boy on the advice of a tantrik or traveling "holy man":
"They dragged him into their home and the eldest son performed a puja ceremony, reciting a mantra and waving incense. Sumitra smeared sandalwood paste and globules of ghee over the terrified child's body. The two men then used a knife to slice off the child's nose, ears and hands before laying him, bleeding, in front of Kali's image."
Superstition is a potent force in India, particularly in remote rural areas which are largely illiterate.
"Modern India is home to hundreds of millions who can't read or write, but who often seek refuge from life's realities through astrology or the magical arts of shamans," said president of the Indian Rationalist Association, Sanal Edamaruku. "Unfortunately these people focus their horrific attention on society's weaker members, mainly women and children who are easier to handle and kidnap."
Forget the Twilight trilogy or the Hunger Games. If your tween is hankering after a terrifying yarn, she need only pick up an Indian newspaper. Reality is stranger, and scarier, than any fiction.
Remember Ross from Friends? (Always found him annoying, but I digress.) Well, this pint-sized paleontologist would give the sitcom character a run for his money.
Four-year-old Stella Hatton's scathing critique of a plastic triceratops at the Canadian Museum of Nature shop is guaranteed to make you smile. Forget Barbie and Bratz. This girl knows her dinos, and won't suffer fools who mistake their horns.
As evidenced in the YouTube video, filmed by her dad, Peter Laporte.
She allegedly wanted the styracosaurus, but all the boxes were labelled “triceratops.” As soon as her father handed her the box, Stella was quick to point out its many design flaws:
"The horn on the nose is too big; the horns over the eyes have been reduced to small bumps, and the frill — the big, bony plate behind the head — is a mess too. Only the beak (mouth area) is right."
Stella insisted the whole thing still looked like a styracosaurus.
After the video got noticed, staff at the Museum of Nature sent Stella an anatomically correct triceratops model, together with some dinosaur books and trading cards.
Stella's mother, Sarah Hatton, admits that her daughter's obsession started six months ago. Even though she can’t read them, Stella somehow can identify dinosaurs by skull type.
“The biggest problem I have now is that she has kind of picked every dinosaur model there is in the stores, but she’s interested in these really obscure ones,” Sarah said.
“She comes to me with sad eyes and says ‘Mummy I don’t have a hesperornis!’”
Ross has nothing on you, girl!
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