Defense Dept. Anti-Tobacco Video Competition: "Fight the Enemy"

    The Department of Defense (DOD) has just announced that the public will be invited to vote in a video competition called "Fight the Enemy."  In this case, the enemy is tobacco.  The innovation office of the military's assistant secretary of defense for health affairs is sponsoring the competition among U.S. service members around the world who were invited to film and submit "tobacco countermarketing" videos.
    The videos in the competition are hosted on the Fight the Enemy website, and visitors are invited to click the "like" button to vote.  The following is one of the videos found on the site:

    Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, says that improving the health of service members is a "national imperative":

“Improving the health and well-being of service members is a national imperative,” Woodson said. “We ask the defense community to help us make tobacco-free living a cultural norm by harnessing the power of social media and sharing the videos with their social networks.”

    Voting will be held for the next month before the winners are announced:

The video with the most “likes” will be declared winner of the People’s Choice Award. A panel of DOD judges will select winners for first, second and third place in the competition. Winners will be announced on March 19 in conjunction with National Kick Butts Day, officials said.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard. 

HHS eCards: Lose Weight, Quit Smoking, Stop Bullying

    As the full implementation of ObamaCare draws nearer, the federal government is pulling out all the stops.  Although the president has often professed a "laser-like" focus on creating jobs, much of the attention of the government seems to be centered not on the economic health of the country, but rather the literal health of its citizens. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website Healthfinder.gov even has a selection of over 100 eCards that can be sent to friends and family to encourage them to lose weight, quit smoking, get screened for various diseases, and even stop bullying.

    Some of the eCards are rather less than subtle.  For instance, one invites the recipient to "make a promise to eat well and move more."

    In case the reader is slow on the uptake, the next page removes all doubt about what the sender has in mind:

    HHS even offered a Father's Day card that went beyond the usual praise and admiration reserved for fathers on their special day and exhorted dads everywhere to "skip the salt" and "take the stairs instead of the elevator."

    Apparently nothing says "Happy Father's Day" like one's child sounding like one's mother.

    The cards do not stop at physical health, either.  There is an anti-bullying card that asks "What's the difference between teasing and bullying?  If we’re not sure, our kids probably aren’t either. Let’s talk about bullying – because all kids deserve a happy, safe childhood."

    It remains unclear from the card if the accompanying photo (above) is intended to represent teasing or bullying.

    To maximize the impact of the cards, the site helpfully informs visitors that they may "send these cards to a friend or loved one by returning to the previous page and entering up to ten (10) recipient names and email addresses."  This feature, however, produces some unlikely scenarios, such as simultaneously congratulating ten friends on recently announced pregnancies.  For some occasions, there's just no substitute for a hand-written note.


Note: A version of this article appeared first at The Weekly Standard.