Ugly Subway Obesity Ads: Are They Too Much?

New, ugly ads in the subway designed to remind riders that obesity is unhealthy are drawing criticism for looking so disturbing.

The New York City Health Department's been zealous in stretching the facts a bit and going for shock value, showing, for example, an amputee in an ad about how fatness can lead to diabetes which can lead to amputations.

The model's lower leg was lost in photoshop rather than surgery, however.

Still, the Health Department argues, so long as food industry commercials have actors who definitely don't eat for what they promote, actors are fair game for the other side of the argument.

Detractors of the negative campaign say that while the strategy has worked against highly addictive drugs like meth, that it mostly hasn't against fat, cigarettes and marijuana, which are simply too everyday to not make the ads a little ridiculous--they don't have the requisite immediacy.

Instead, the detractors argue, campaigns should be positive, focusing on getting people to move, and the positive feelings that come from exercising.