The Mayor and Health Department Will Keep Scaring You With Gross Obesity Ads

The mayor's office and health department say that their in-your-face public health ads -- one of which features a fake amputee -- are necessary shock tactics to get people to make healthier meal choices and stop smoking.

A lot of people beg to differ: Experts say that these campaigns -- much like the anti-heroin posters with toothless addicts and fried egg anti-drug commercials -- likely bounce right off the stubborn people who need the message the most, the New York Times reports.

Still, the City plans on moving forward with freaking you the fuck out.

"When science tells us that smoking does not cause lung cancer or that obesity is not driving an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes, we will stop depicting those facts in ads," a health department flack said in a statement. "Until then we are going to accurately convey the facts in our advertising -- advertising that has helped to successfully reduce smoking in New York City to a historic low of 14 percent, saving thousands of lives."

If you don't remember, the health department and Bloomberg administration recently got a lot of criticism for running an anti-soda ad depicting a diabetes patient with an amputated leg. The big problem -- the guy in the advert is able-bodied, so the ad agency edited out his leg in the photo (whoops!), the Times reports.

In retaliation, he offered soda companies his services on the cheap, telling the Times: "I'll sing and dance for them and I won't charge an arm and a leg."

LOL?

Follow Victoria Bekiempis @vicbekiempis.