Over the last few years there have been many arguments in the diabetes space about the use of scare tactics to motivate people to take care of themselves. There was the very unpleasant ad campaign with the (fake) amputee (which I felt was not effective) and JDRF\u2019s 1 in 20 campaign (which I believe did a good job raising awareness).<\/p>\n
Now the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has released its first public service announcement. The IDF says its animated video \u00a0“challenges the public to look at diabetes in a different light, underlining the serious consequences of the disease that can often go unnoticed if it is not managed and treated properly. The video also promotes the importance of staying healthy to protect our future.”<\/p>\n
The animated style of the video is somewhat appealing, there are no disturbing images and diabetes is portrayed as a dark smoke monster, reminding me of the series Lost<\/em>, which sneaks up on very healthy looking people (everyone is very thin in the video) and kills them without warning.<\/p>\n \u00a0[youtube]http:\/\/youtu.be\/2-8vzfAzlMw[\/youtube]\n After watching the video a few times I have some thoughts\/questions:<\/p>\n Does the scare tactic in this video work? <\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 The \u2018black smoke monster as diabetes\u2019 doesn\u2019t strike me as a plausible metaphor.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, diabetes is not a complete mystery, or a random monster that strikes without warning.\u00a0 Research has a taught us a lot about diabetes and in many cases, especially with type 2, we can prevent or delay its onset.\u00a0 And even if the black monster gets you, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re going to drop dead.\u00a0 With the right education and medication you can live a perfectly good and healthy life with diabetes.\u00a0 So, the video might be effective, if, for example, it suggesed people get screened for diabetes.\u00a0 There is no reference to risk factors (everyone in the video looks very healthy) and there is no suggestion that lifestyle factors can contribute to diabetes and\/or its complications. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So even if you believe that scare tactics work, does this one?\u00a0 Is it scary or silly?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tell me what you think.<\/p>\n [youtube]http:\/\/youtu.be\/r-Y64_GWpHw[\/youtube]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":33560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[25],"yoast_head":"\n