Re: BMJ article

Interesting.  I remember that thirty years ago when it was near
to impossible to get fresh dairy produce in Thailand, "Bear Brand"
was what we put in our morning coffee, and it was "aroy" (delicious!)
with plaa tongkoo (a kind of doughnut) for breakfast.

The label was then, as I recall, printed monochrome on a creamy-
coloured paper and the English annotation described Bear Brand
as "condensed milk" rather than "sweetened beverage creamer"
which is probably more PC and even accurate but sounds weird.
There was a bear on the label, but more naturalistic than
cartoony, and definitely not with a baby bear.

I'm sure that the major conclusions are correct, that the
cartoon of adult bear and baby bear were taken to indicate
that the product can be fed to infants.  For the article to
describe this without qualification as a "breast-feeding
posture" might be contentious; (a) I myself have often
held infants in this posture and was assuredly not breast
feeding; (b) I confess I've not looked at a lady bear's
breasts to see where they are located (she mightn't have
taken kindly to it, even if naturally "bear-breasted").

The message in the visuals is important in the Lao context,
given that there are so many other languages e.g. Lisu, Yao,
Hmong, Lenten.

If we're going to approach this as information designers I
also want to take a sideswipe at the BMJ because the resolution
at which the all-important visual evidence (the label) is
presented is appalling!  At least make a high resolution image
available so that people can make up their own mind.

I would also like a deeper analysis of the translations into
Thai and Lao.  It is interesting that the Lao translation is
nearly twice as long as the Thai one, considering that the
two languages are such close kin as to be like, say, Dutch
and Frisian.  Indeed the Isaan dialect of NE Thailand is
practically the same as Lao.  So what is the discrepancy
in the translation?

Over the weekend I'll haul my Mary Haas Thai-English dictionary
off the shelf and figure out what the Thai legend says, at least.

Conrad


At 12:13 +0100 12/9/08, Jane Teather wrote:
>Today¹s /British Medical Journal (BMJ)/ contains a report of research on
>a dangerously misleading product label.
>
>I think the online mag is subscription-only, so this link may not work:
>http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/sep09_2/a1379
>
>So here is a summary:
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>In Laos a popular coffee creamer is marketed with an illustration of a
>mother bear holding a baby bear in the breastfeeding position. The first
>listed ingredient is sugar and it contains 3.6% of calories as protein
>and 27.3% as fat. For infant formulas the recommended content is
>7.2-12.0% protein and 40-54% fat. The coffee creamer is sold in many
>rural roadside shops. The company uses the same Bear Brand logo on its
>canned sterilised cows¹ milk product and on infant formula products for
>infants from 6 months. A warning on the can states "This product is not
>to be used as breast milk substitute" in English, Thai, and Lao. There
>is also an illustration of a feeding bottle with a cross through it.
>
>*Results of research:* Of 26 paediatricians surveyed, 24 said that
>parents "often" or "sometimes" fed this product to infants as a
>substitute for breast milk. In the capital city, paediatricians said
>that mothers used the product when they returned to work. In the
>countryside, they reported that poor families used it when the mother
>was ill or died. Of 1098 adults surveyed, 96% believed that the can
>contains milk; 46% believed the Bear Brand logo indicates that the
>product is formulated for feeding to infants or to replace breast milk;
>80% had not read the written warning on the can; and over 18% reported
>giving the product to their infant at a mean age of 4.7 months (95%
>confidence interval 4.1 to 5.3)
>
>*Conclusion:* The Bear Brand coffee creamer is used as a breast milk
>substitute in Laos. The cartoon logo influences people¹s perception of
>the product that belies the written warning "This product is not to be
>used as a breast milk substitute." Use of this logo on coffee creamer is
>misleading to the local population and places the health of infants at risk.
>
>--
>Regards
>Jane


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