The Heart Foundation is defending the use of a confrontational new advertisement which suggests people who do not look after their own heart health do not love their families.
The advertisement called Heartless Words features a scene where a mother is putting her child to bed at night and says "every time I told you I loved you I was lying. You are not my priority".
In another scene a man washing dishes with his wife tells her "I promised you my heart and I've given it away".
In another, a woman in a hospital bed speaking to a young child in a school uniform says "because it's not just my heart that I don't care about, it's yours."
The final line of the ad urges people to contact their GP for a heart health check saying "what are you really saying when you neglect your heart health".
John Kelly the group CEO of the Heart Foundation apologised if people found the ad shocking but said with 51 people dying every day from heart disease it was justified.
"Two thirds of Australians have three or more risk factors so it goes beyond that. The evidence is quite overwhelming," Professor Kelly told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"The level of complacency requires us to get this conversation going.
"Some people will take offence and we apologise for that. But the level of complacency requires us to have this conversation."
Lacks sensitivity
On Twitter one man who lost his wife to a sudden heart attack wrote: "I don't want our son watching or hearing this type of rubbish advertising. His mother loved him very much and this insensitive vile is a disgrace to your organisation".
Patrick McGorry the executive director of Orygen and a professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne called it a classic case of victim blaming.
"So people are to blame for their illness? That's been precisely the basis for stigma in mental illness and addictions," he said on Twitter.
"Same for suicidal patients in EDs where they are blamed and put to the back of the queue."
Dee Madigan, a political advertising specialist, called the add "terrible, terrible".
"Imagine how any kid who has lost a parent to heart disease feels when hearing this," she said.
Sue Walker, the head of obstetrics at the University of Melbourne and Mercy Hospital called the ad "challenging" and "triggering".
She said heart disease needs public attention, investment and research.
While she honoured the work of the Heart Foundation, she said the ad triggered an unpleasant personal reaction in the wake of the death of her father 19 years ago from heart disease.
"To have a voice from the grave suggesting he died because he didn't care for himself or for us perhaps lacks a little sensitivity," she told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"Human behaviour is complex even in some of those areas of modifiable risk factors and it's perhaps a little bit reductionist to suggest that people died because they didn't care for themselves or they didn't care for others."
