Jayne Dowle: Getting the message right for a healthier, fitter country

Having, over the years, undertaken all of the above, I am inclined to say that I would rather sort myself out than follow some patronising government edict to the letter.

But it would seem I am in the minority. Since the Government announced a spending freeze on the £540m spent on health and well-being campaigns such as Change4Life, apparently calls and requests for information have plummeted.

Enquiries to the Change4Life info line almost stopped altogether, falling by 90 per cent. Visits to the NHS Smokefree website dropped by 50 per cent, and it is reported that the number of people attempting to quit smoking has fallen dramatically.

If taken to its logical conclusion, this means that the nation is getting fatter, less fit and approaching the overall lung capacity of a tortoise who has been on 20-a-day for the last 10 years.

Or, as the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health reports: “The cessation of marketing activity has resulted in declining quit attempts and subsequent loss of life from smoking-related illness.”

If that doesn’t shock the bean-counters, then I don’t know what will.

I do find it worrying that so many people seem incapable of doing anything about their health unless they are prompted into it by a primary-coloured poster, but perhaps that’s just me.

And considering that we are all supposed to be tightening our belts, it is interesting that research shows that the majority of British people still believe government money is well-spent on advertising campaigns.

It must be said that this particular research was commissioned by the Advertising Association, but on the strength of it all, the Government has performed yet another U-turn and decided to earmark £44m for four new health campaigns; to fund Smokefree, Change4Life, a campaign to advertise well-being issues affecting older people and another to improve the lives of young people.

I could argue that the main thing that would improve the lives of the latter two groups would be more money in their pension and a future that didn’t involve thousands of pounds of debt, respectively. But perhaps that would be churlish, if not missing the point altogether.

What I would say to the Government, which has presumably magicked up this £44m from somewhere which is having to suffer in return, is that it must spend its money wisely if it is to be worthwhile. I trust that we will be spared the worst nannying excesses of New Labour, but I am keen to see how the coalition approach this particular communications strategy challenge.

I’m not expecting a consultancy fee, but here are a few tips. Everyone who sees that “Think” road safety campaign, which shows the tragic consequences of speeding or using a mobile phone at the wheel, remembers it for the figure of the dead child who haunts the driver for the rest of his life.

It’s okay. We are grown-ups. It is upsetting, but we can take it. So if we’re going to die of fat clogging up our arteries, tell it like it is. Humour is okay, in its place – think Harry Enfield’s Mr Cholmondley-Warner, who could be a good spokesman in this new age of austerity.

But we need absolutely no irritating cartoon figures of any description please. I’m sure that that the “Plasticine” family on the Change4Life TV ads was a triumph of animation, but the scenarios were dumbed-down in the extreme.

No less a publication than The Lancet complained that scenes of a “caveman” family chasing its prey with a club, compared with a “modern” family sat on a sofa stuffing itself with pizza, were too simplistic.

Show me a woman too fat to get into a train seat any day. That would stop me buying a bacon butty from the buffet car.

No annoying voices either, especially of the celebrity variety. I spend far more time than is good for me listening to commercial radio when I’m driving.

The adverts may be annoying, but I find them fascinating and spend hours working out what works and what doesn’t.

Would you be more inclined to stop smoking if a Welshman tried to talk you into it?

Or would you do as I do every time Moira Stuart comes on and reminds me to pay my tax bill, and switch it off, just for the satisfaction of knowing that you took control?

I hope that the Ministers and communications gurus are thinking carefully about all of this. It seems they have been caught on the hop, and nothing messes with judgment more than fear.

Get it wrong, and it’s a case of shoot the messenger.

Get it right, and for once, we might believe something that the Government tells us.