NEW JERSEY, March 18, 2002: This week's editorial isn't about false or misleading pharmaceutical marketing. It's about another example of consumer marketing that is distasteful and insensitive.

A recent TV spot for Swanson Hungry-Man Dinners featured the tagline, "It's good to be full."

This was not related to the Snickers candy bar campaign, which states "Don't let hunger happen to you." Nor was it related to the Fox TV show called "The Glutton Bowl."

What we want to say is this: Do any of the people involved in these brands or shows know anything about hunger? About how many people actually go to bed hungry every night in the US alone?

Try 23 million. Americans.

More than 5 million are children under 12. In fact, kids are the largest group of people who go bed hungry in the United States.

This is happening right here in the US, the richest nation on earth, where oddly enough, half of the adults are clinically obese. Portion sizes, researchers say, do play a role. Supersizes. Biggie sizes. Big Gulps. Bulk. Warehouse clubs. Is it any wonder we're an overweight society?

And high-fat, high-cholesterol, one-pound-of-food frozen dinners are being sold with lines like "It's good to be full."

Even the the brand name itself seems embarassing, when you think about at it. "Hungry-Man."

Is it possible that a frozen-meal manufacturer may be contributing to an already alarming obesity and high cholesterol problem -- while at the same time it's offending and alienating the malnourished and hngry with a callous, insensitive advertising campaign?

Imagine the outcry if a drug company marketed a cancer vaccine with language like "It's good to be alive." Or an AIDS medication that warned, "Don't let HIV happen to you."

Why is this acceptable in consumer marketing?

Then again, is it?

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