No TV And No Beer Make Homer… Healthy?

One of my favourite The Simpsons episodes of all time is "King-Sized Homer." Remember that one? America's favourite animated dad – who already sports quite the zaftig figure – decides to gain 61 pounds to reach an even 300. His motivation: To qualify for disability so he can work from home and dodge his workplace's new exercise program. Once he reaches his goal, the new and not-quite-improved Homer begins experiencing health problems and discrimination from Springfield's residents due to his extra weight.

It looks like the long-running TV series is tackling the obesity issue once again, though in a somewhat different manner: The U.K.'s Department of Health (DOH) has chosen The Simpsons as its platform for a campaign promoting healthy living.

As part of its Change4Life initiative, the department is showing ads that push healthy eating and exercise habits at the beginning of Simpsons episodes airing on the U.K. TV network, Channel 4. The ads, which feature cartoon characters designed by Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit), show a family sitting in a Simpsons-esque house eating an assortment of junk food. These are then replaced by healthier options, ranging from fruits and vegetables to a bike for the coach potatoes.

Each ad ends with the tagline: "Change4Life: Supporting the Simpsons… sometimes," a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the characters' imperfect diets. (Homer's high-school yearbook quote was, after all, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing.")

You can check out the ads at sky.com here.

The DOH -- what a likely acronym! -- is spending around £640,000 (about $1 million CDN) to sponsor episodes of the series until the end of December. Whether that's money well-spent remains to be seen, but one thing's for sure – the obesity problem will need more substantial solutions than the one Homer gets from his boss at the end of "King-Sized Homer" (Mr. Burns: "Bah! I'll just pay for the blasted liposuction!").

— Eva Lam