ACTORS EAT CHIPS AND GET HEART ATTACK

Actors eat chips and get heart attacks: Ramadoss
CNN-IBN
HEALTH FOOD JUNKIE: Health Minister Ramadoss slams actor for promoting chips.

New Delhi: Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss does not like surrogate ads, he does not like film stars who smoke and now he does not like stars endorsing junk foods.

Ramadoss, a doctor, said actors eat chips and suffer heart attacks because of their junk food habits.

He didn’t take names but was referring to actor Saif Ali Khan, who endorses a popular chips brand and had reportedly suffered a heart attack last year.

“There was this actor who was endorsing Lays chips and later suffered a heart attack," said Ramadoss.

Ramadoss has lectured film actors earlier, too. In January he faulted superstar Shah Rukh Khan for smoking in films and claimed he had statistics to show that children were influenced by celebrity lifestyle.

“We have statistics which show that 52 per cent of children have their first puff because of movie celebrities,” he told CNN-IBN on the Devil’s Advocate programme.

“Please don't smoke in your movies, Mr Shah Rukh Khan,” he had said.

Khan “agreed with Ramadoss but said filmmakers should have “creative liberties”.

In February 2008, the Minister picked up another issue: surrogate liquor and tobacco ads.

In an angry letter to Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ramadoss demanded an immediate ban on such ads.

“These products bear exactly the same brand name and logo, which we have earlier seen in liquor advertisements. These surrogate advertisements violate the statutory provisions and defeat the very purpose of the ban imposed by the Government on such products,” he had complained.