More fucked up weight-loss ads:

[gnimaerd]

I'm annoyed with Special K.

You know, that  Kellog's cereal they always market to women on the basis of it being 'slimming' in some way?  I mean, pretty much ALL their ads have some weight-related or diet-related theme. Which is annoying enough. (I think the tag line for one of their cereal bars is 'Spoil yourself, not your figure.' - ick, on so many levels).

But there's a new one for the cereal trotting out that old trope about 'getting slimmer for summer', featuring this woman in baggy clothes, imagining herself in her swimsuit again, and 'losing weight' so she looks as good as she did the summer before (using the Special K diet plan, of course).

Okay, I'm all for anyone who wants to shedding a few pounds if it makes them feel better about themselves and contributes overall to their health and wellbeing. Do it in a safe, sane and sustainable way, without ever going hungry and concentrating on accepting and loving your body, and you're golden. But seriously?  The woman in this ad is SKINNY  AS  FUCK. Sure, they dress her in baggy clothes at the begining - but we are NOT  blind - she is still clearly SKINNY  AS  FUCK. Tall, and lean, angular cheekbones and all.

And what this ad is essentially saying is that it is COMPLETELY  NORMAL and COMPLETELY  ACCEPTABLE  for a woman who looks like that to STILL  be trying to lose weight. A woman who is tall and beautiful and willowy and almost certainly a model in real life (since that's who they use for non-speaking parts in these kinds of ads), is STILL  NOT  GOOD  ENOUGH.

Do you hear that, girls?  EVEN IF WE MANAGE TO BE SIX FOOT AND FEMININE AND BEAUTIFUL AND STATUESQUE AND MODEL-LIKE, WE SHOULD ALL STILL BE TRYING TO GET SLIMMER FOR SUMMER. OH YES, THIS IS NORMAL AND IF YOU AREN'T TRYING TO GET SLIMMER YOU MUST BE FAT, FAT, FAT AND WILL LOOK HORRIBLE IN A SWIM SUIT. YOU ALL LISTENING TO ME?!

This?  This RIGHT  HERE?  This is why women the world over are so freaking good at hating themselves and their bodies. Because we are told over and over and over that NOTHING is EVER  good enough. We should ALWAYS  be striving to lose a few more pounds - we're never QUITE perfect or fine the way we are.

Ugh, it makes me so freaking ANGRY I could SPIT.

Comments

[eviinsanemonkey.livejournal.com]

I hate most ads for diet stuff because if it's not obviously someone superskinny, they've obviously been photoshopped or the before picture person isn't the same person as the after picture.

Just like commercials for acne meds. either the person has no acne whatsoever, or the before picture person is not the same as the after picture person.

It's usually annoyingly obvious...

Ad campaigns in general piss me off.

I just rambled like mad...I hope I make sense.

[gnimaerd.livejournal.com]

No, I know what you mean. It's this instance on essentially lying through visual trickery - waving an impossible dream under people's noses - in order to pray on someone's deepest insecurities about the way they look, whether it's weight issues or acne or anything else. The entire diet/beauty industry is fucked up that way.

[heather11483.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that I can think of few diet ads I've seen that DON'T do that.

It's all predicated on telling us that 1) we should never be happy with ourselves the way we are, 2) being happy requires simply changing our appearance, and 3) It's REALLY REALLY QUICK EASY PAINLESS to do and you will TOTALLY LOOK LIKE THIS FAKE OR RARE EXAMPLE OF A PERSON once you buy this product/book/protein shake/whatever the fuck.

Which is so wrong on so many levels. How many diet plans start with feeling better about ourselves [generic us/ourselves] FIRST and then maybe feeling like we deserve the best, most healthy life possible and feeling driven and motivated to work toward that? I'm thinking those are the ones with half a chance of working.

Not the ones that start with unrealistic ideals, and then tell us we can reach them in unrealistic ways, and then get surprised when we are discouraged when those unrealistic methods do not work.

[indes-elfwine.livejournal.com]

Word. I was a slim child who is struggling with a slowing-down metabolism and this crap DOES NOT HELP. People wonder why so many girls are getting eating disorders and wanting plastic sugery - it's because they're being conditioned to think they are inherently flawed, disgusting and inferior by virtue of being female. And even a feminist who knows that all this is bullshit, the brainwashing still seeps in sometimes. :(

[mai-shiranui.livejournal.com]

Stupid isn't it? I really don't know why they have these adds for slimming stuff with thin women or for that matter, the anti-cellulite adds with women that have a pair of toned legs that have probably never seen a bit of cellulite. So annoying.

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

You want to know the best part? A kids cereal like Frosted Flakes actually has less calories and sodium.

[gnimaerd.livejournal.com]

IKR? I got curious the other day and had a look at the ingrediants in Special K and seriously - it's full of such crap. Really, REALLY sugary, too, some of it.

[amandajane17.livejournal.com]

And have you see how much salt is in that stuff ? !

[silverarrow92.livejournal.com]

I've seen that same ad and the thoughts running through my head are very similar. Anything that suggests the audience must be unhappy with their body image and should work to get a better figure/weight drives me insane - as if we don't have enough insecurities and problems to deal with!

The worst part is that there are so much things better for you than this Special K (and similar products) that aren't advertised in such a way. Want to be healthier? Try a banana instead of a sugar-and-crap filled "cereal bar".

[atraphoenix.livejournal.com]

That infuriates me, too. They don't focus on the right sort of weight loss, either. The emphasis is on 'quick and fast' rather than 'steady and permanent (and healthy)'.

[vermontypython.livejournal.com]

I hate Special K ads. I hate them to death. If you have a chocolate craving at midnight, you're not going to go for chocolate-flavored cereal. That's just weird. If someone wants to lose weight, cereal isn't the cure- it's like diet soda ads or commercials for weight loss pills. They don't work, and even if you do, magically, lose a few pounds the negative side effects are WAY more noticeable than the positive ones.

Nghhh.

I'm fine with the way I am now. Sure, I don't look like Keira Knightley, but I can run several miles without falling on my face. Why can't the world be like us?

[gnimaerd.livejournal.com]

Indeed. That's the great myth of cereal bars - being as they have to be so few calories to be marketed, they pump them full of sugar and god knows what else so that they taste alright.

Plus, all those diet pills, unless you're prepaired to take them for the rest of your life, NEVER work. The moment you come off them, you put any weight you lost straight back on again - and you also have to deal with all these nasty side affects whilst your on them. (Oily anal seepage, anyone? Mmmmm. Tasty.)

[amandajane17.livejournal.com]

I so agree it's sickening; and they wonder why so many young girls ( and sadly lads too ) have eating disorders and poor body image at a time when body image shouldn't be on their minds at all. aaaarrrggh.

[elphie-uk.livejournal.com]

Why can't they market it on the fact that it tastes nice?!
Something made me laugh the other day; I'm a little underweight, so I started looking at the calorie content of my cereals and I realised that I'd be better off eating Special K than chocolate cereal in order to put on a bit of weight! I thought it was ridiculous!
It also makes me laugh when they have women who've obviously had tonnes of botox advertising anti-wrinkle creams... I mean come on!
Another pet peeve is when they have thirty year old women on the front of catalogs containing clothes designed for over-fifties.