How Celebrity Ads Peddle Alcohol, Tobacco and Junk Food

By Dinesh C Sharma, June 2, 2015

Notices sent to Bollywood stars – Madhuri Dixit, Priety Zinta and Amitabh Bachchan – for claiming Maggi noodles to be “healthy” while it has been found to contain ingredients harmful to human health have opened up a can of worms about celebrity endorsements.

The number of Indian celebrities endorsing alcohol, tobacco and junk food brands runs into several dozen and covers everybody from Bollywood A-listers to "have beens" and minor television starlets.

Endorsements of products considered unhealthy or which can cause

potential damage to one’s health are so widespread and deep that it would not be wrong to blame our film stars and cricketers for a significant part of the growing burden of lifestyle ailments.

Though alcohol and tobacco advertising – direct and indirect – is banned in the country, our film stars have no qualms about promoting alcohol and tobacco brands under the fig leaf of “surrogate advertising”. So when King Khan SRK says “Have I made it large”, you know he is talking about Royal Stag whisky and not music CDs.

In commercials celebrating 25 years of Vimal Pan Masala, Bollywood’s "cool guy" Ajay Devgn says "iske dane dane me kesar hai", but even a child can make out that he is not promoting saffron from Kashmir but pan masala which carries a statutory health warning (“Chewing of Pan Masala is injurious to health”). Other youth icons - Priyanka Chopra (Rajnigandha), Saif Ali Khan (Pan Bahar) – too are asking the youth to buy products which are patently unhealthy.

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