NYC diabetes ad has digitally altered amputee

By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff

Judging by the looks of the above public service ad being displayed at bus stops and subway stations in New York City, you’d think this man lost his right leg below the knee due to uncontrollable diabetes.

But it turns out, the photo was digitally altered and the man has all his limbs and may not actually suffer from diabetes.

The original photo, taken in 2008 by photographer Morten Smidt, was a man with both arms and legs sitting on a stool, according to the New York Times. Smidt sold the photo to a stock photo agency, which then sold it to the ad agency that developed the campaign for the New York City Department of Health.

“They altered the image,” Smidt told the Associated Press. Controversial ad campaigns linking obesity and overeating to diseases are all the rage -- like the one in Georgia featuring overweight kids.

While one can argue that they bring much needed attention to a health crisis, I think they can also back-fire -- especially if they’re providing misleading information.

People may wonder why the Department of Health needed to digitally alter a photo to slice off a man’s leg instead of finding a real diabetic amputee, even one wishing to conceal his identity.

After all, the ad leads us to believe that like diabetes, amputations are also on the rise; thus, amputees should be easy to find.

In fact, foot and leg amputations have dropped by more than half from 1996 to 2008 probably due to better management of the disease, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published yesterday in Diabetes Care.

To me, the diabetes ad has all the makings of a 1960’s Russian propaganda campaign and could, in fact, anger folks enough to make them more likely to reach for that supersize Coke. What do you think?

Deborah Kotz can be reached at dkotz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @debkotz2.