Culture

The Heart Foundation Is Getting Slammed For An Offensive Ad Blaming Victims Of Heart Disease

They've already had to edit out a scene where an Indigenous mother tells her child she doesn't care about him.

by Sam Langford  30 May 2019
heart foundation ad

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The Heart Foundation has had to remove a scene from its latest ad campaign, after footage of an Indigenous mother telling her child she doesn’t love him was quite rightly slammed as wildly insensitive.

The Heart Foundation’s latest ad campaign, thoughtfully titled “Heartless Words”, asks the question “what are you saying when you neglect your heart health?”, and then features a number of scenes where people with heart disease coldly tell families, friends and loved ones that they don’t actually give a shit about them.

In the scene that has now been cut, a mother tucks her child into bed and tells him that “every time I told you I loved you, I was lying. You are not my priority”. The scene was pretty immediately met with backlash, particularly given that Indigenous Australians face higher rates of heart disease in large part due to factors beyond their control, including poor access to health services in many remote communities. Not to mention the fact that for children who see this ad — particularly children who’ve lost a parent to heart disease — watching a mother tell her child she lied and never loved them could be devastating.

While the scene has now been removed, the Heart Foundation initially defended its decision. “We apologise if we’ve caused offence to anyone, we appreciate the feedback and we have responded by no longer using the scene where a mother says to a son that she had told him she loved him but that she had lied,” they finally announced yesterday, though they continue to defend the rest of the ad, which is also pretty controversial.

Other scenes involve a husband telling his wife “I promised you my heart, but I’ve given it away,” a man telling his young family that “in time, this family will be filled with loss and sadness, but I won’t care because I’ll be gone”, and another scene of a mother telling her child “it’s not just my heart I don’t care about, it’s yours”.

On social media, people with hereditary heart conditions, as well as people who have lost loved ones to heart conditions, have shared their own stories, and pointed out that the ad blames victims of heart disease for their condition instead of showing compassion.

“This is not starting a useful conversation, this is cruelty for shock value. You are perpetuating stigma against the people you’re supposed to support,” one person wrote. “I am 25 and I have heart disease because of my genetics, not because I don’t love my family enough to look after my health.”

“The part of the ad that really upset me, however, was the fact it was spreading the idea that if you have heart disease you somehow don’t love your family,” Dr Evelyn Lewin wrote in an opinion piece, pointing out that victim blaming has been shown to be an ineffective tool for motivating people to care about their health. “What a hurtful message.”

You can see the full ad here, though be warned: if you or anyone you know has been impacted by heart disease, it may be confronting to watch.