A community obesity task force co-sponsored and partially supported by the local health department, decided the community needed to give more attention to childhood obesity, given that the community’s childhood obesity prevalence is higher than the rest of the state and appears to be increasing.

A community obesity task force co-sponsored and partially supported by the local health department, decided the community needed to give more attention to childhood obesity, given that the community’s childhood obesity prevalence is higher than the rest of the state and appears to be increasing. The task force, therefore, voted to initiate an anti-obesity communication campaign featuring images of (unidentifiable) overweight children. For example, one pictures a group of children running in a race, with an overweight child struggling behind everyone else, with a tagline that says, Childhood obesity, it’s no fun. How should the health department assess the communication campaign? Is it informational, persuasive, or manipulative? What level of health literacy does it address? What are the ethical dimensions, if any, of the communication?