Small Step (Obesity Prevention)

insidearm.com

Also: Small Steps · Childhood Obesity Prevention (Ad Council/HHS) · Be a Player

HHS and Ad Council obesity prevention campaign launched in March 2004, urging adults to take small, achievable steps (taking the stairs, eating smaller portions) toward healthier weight. In 2005 the focus shifted to children, including 2007 Shrek 'Be a Player' PSAs urging kids to play an hour a day.

Years: 2004
Country: United States
Budget: Reported as funded by the government "at more than $1.5 million a year"; the Childhood Obesity Prevention campaign was reported to have received "more than $179 million in donated media support".
Topic: Nutrition Physical activity
Asks people to: Start Substitute
Strategy: Humor Self efficacy Simple instruction
Channel: Outdoor Print Radio TV
Audience: Adults Parents Youth
Adults (2004); parents and children from 2005.

Evidence

NoneUnknown

Critics noted at the time that the sponsors had no data on whether the ads worked. The Ad Council and HHS were members of the Coalition for Healthy Children alongside Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Hershey and the National Confectioners Association, raising conflict-of-interest criticism.

Sponsor (who paid)

Ad Council Ad Council (pro bono), campaign producer
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Federal government, partner/sponsor
DreamWorks Animation Industry, partner (Shrek PSAs, 2007)

Credits (who made it)

McCann Erickson Creative, 2004 source

Executions (individual ads)

Shrek 'Be a Player' PSAs 2007 · tv

Sources

HHS speech on the Small Step campaign (archived hhs.gov, March 2004) sponsor · 2004
Shape Up (Government Executive) news · 2004
HHS Secretary Leavitt and Ad Council Unveil Campaign to Combat Childhood Obesity (insideARM) news
Shrek Wants Children to 'Get Up and Play' (Connection Newspapers) news · 2007

Research notes

McCann attribution comes from secondary news reporting. Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: McCann Erickson (Government Executive, Sept 2004: the ads are a collaboration between HHS, the Ad Council and 'the team of marketing whizzes from McCann Erickson Worldwide Advertising that created MasterCard's "Priceless" commercials'). Corrected 2026-10-22: name changed from 'McCann Erickson New York' to 'McCann Erickson'; the article does not name the office. The 2005+ childhood-obesity phase may deserve its own record. A 2012 Ad Council/Clear Channel 'Healthy Habits' radio effort promoted NIH's We Can! program (https://www.iheartmedia.com/press/ad-council-and-clear-channel-communitiestm-launch-unprecedented-commitment-reduce-childhood). endYear unknown. Links (#82) checked 2026-10-23: Ad Council pages from the Wayback Machine (adcouncil.org's old campaign pages), the Our History timeline or its case studies; dead campaign sites point to a Wayback copy from the campaign years.

Record cases/small-step.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign