Dear Mr Kelly, A correspondent and fellow health advocate shared with me your response to her letter concerning the recent baby bottle illustration in Weekend. As a freelance journalist and women's health writer contributing regularly to Vogue, Parenting, and many similar popular magazines, I understand your cynicism concerning the mass media. Of course, as writers, illustrators, and editors we are constantly bombarding the public with superficial information and imagery which has no depth of meaning whatsoever. I am therefore not at all surprised that the symbol of a bottle was used mindlessly to imply, 'baby'. Some of us, however - even journalists - do pause occasionally to think about the impact of what we are doing. Bottles are the cultural norm in this country in large part because they are portrayed as such in the mass media. As you say, the suppression of breastfeeding is shameful, yet countless women fail to breastfeed because they consider the bottle as normal, the breast as 'gross'. You have been exposed to breastfeeding through your family, however you have apparently not been exposed to breastfeeding 3 or 4 year olds, which is a cultural norm in many developing countries. Presumably, this is why you find the idea 'gross' yourself. I am sure the cigarette companies would like to claim that linking Joe Camel and teenage smoking is also an idea from the lunatic fringe, but we know that it is not. Mass exposure to apparently meaningless imagery has a tremendous effect on society, and those of us involved in the media ought, more than any others, to be aware of this. I am glad you are so aware of the benefits of breastfeeding, and I hope that next time you use a bottle as an illustration, you will at least give it a second thought. Yours sincerely, Anne Merewood Freelance writer and breastfeeding counselor