Poster Child: Asthma

    Instead of focusing on a single poster child, I'd like to observe and discuss several poster children that all represent the same cause: asthma awareness and research. Asthma is a disease that causes swelling and constriction of the lungs, making it very difficult to breathe. My own younger brother has asthma, so I've seen secondhand how difficult it can be to manage in day-to-day life. He takes an inhaler everywhere with him, even if he doesn't plan on participating in strenuous physical activity that could trigger an asthma attack. 

    What I immediately notice about charities and foundations dedicated to asthma awareness and research is their significant emphasis on children. As Longmore writes in Heaven's Special Child, "through much of Western history, disabled and sick children were central to the practice of charity..." and "disability charities drew on the cult of sentimentalism's traditional tropes as they focused public attention on the icon of the innocent helpless child." While asthma is by no means a disease that only affects children - in fact, it's one of the biggest reasons for missed work days - asthma organizations seem to rely almost exclusively on children for their marketing. There are, of course, images and articles about adults struggling with asthma as well, but from what I've observed after reading the home pages of several asthma agencies, the number of children displayed on the websites far exceeds the number of adults. 

    

The ethnic makeup of these poster children seems to reaffirm Longmore's findings: "Easter Seals' strategists also said that White kids drew more donations than children of color, though more nonwhite children would appear by the later decades of the twentieth century." While is there some diversity represented in the asthma foundations' public materials, I've found them to be disproportionately white or fair-skinned. 

    One way in which my contemporary findings slightly deviate from Longmore's are in the depiction of the disability itself: "It was a tricky balance: they had to appear helpless but they mustn't be too disabled." I've found some poster children that follow with this; they're small children holding up an inhaler or oxygen mask by themselves - a cute image that highlights the dependence of these children without showing to the world the true pain and panic that a full-on asthma attack can induce. 

On the other hand, I've found several images on these organizations' sites that have no indication of asthma or disability at all, just smiling children. 

It's clear to see that many of the problems highlighted with poster children in Heaven's Special Child are still perpetuated today by modern charities and foundations for disabilities like asthma. It seems to me that many of the same marketing and emotional appeal tactics are still being used by contemporary organizations.