Twas the night before Christmas and what did I see?
The first commercial signaling the New Year to be.
I let out a giggle and then I just sighed.
Lets tighten our belts and enjoy the ride!
On Diets, On Treadmills, On Low-Carb, and Cheat Days
On Fat-Free, on South Beach, On Alli and the latest craze!
Although I didn’t actually write that until just now. I actually have no idea where that came from. It just came out.
On Christmas Eve I just giggled and sighed and thought “It’s On.”
I saw the first of what I knew would be an onslaught of diet and fitness marketing that occurs every year.
I was amused because I imagined a lot of people would take issue with a theme of the commercial. I haven’t heard a peep though.
I FINALLY found the spot online to share with you:
You can find joy in the scale.
My thoughts?
I’m not getting my ED panties all up in a wedge over this. Not at all.
(I actually have this magnet on my fridge)
The fact is people CAN gain joy, freedom, and confidence as part of their weight loss journey. The fact is we DO have an obesity epidemic in this country and a national norm of compulsive eating.
Weight loss does not guarantee perfect health or happiness, it is not an answer to depression or insecurity. This commercial doesn’t promise that.
And some people? Well, we get sick and develop eating disorders. Maybe we start to believe the ONLY way to get joy is from the scale. Maybe it started as a diet. Maybe not.
But we don’t “catch” eating disorders from Special K commercials.
I give props to Special K for marketing weight loss using an appeal OTHER than aesthetics, swimsuits and skinny jeans.
Special K gets WAY under my skin with their commercials, so I’m actually surprised I’m Ok with this one. I mean…their models never EVER need to lose much weight. Or any.
I wish they had obese people jumping up and down in the commercial above, but obese people (apparently) only belong on reality TV. I guess. Whatever. It’s Fine.
It’s a normal-people world and we’re just living in it.
Does it send a WRONG message? Depends how you look at it.
Does it send a POSITIVE message? I think so, no matter how you look at it.
That is all.
Please weigh in. <—Pun Intended and Enjoyed Thoroughly.
PS-
I have not seen this particular commercial again but I have seen other spots from the campaign. These other spots kind of elaborate more on the theme of the campaign and I think they do much more in promoting a culture that embraces weight loss for it’s emotional and health benefits rather than the perfect number and size. They use a women on the street approach with more dialogue that shows our anxiety over a number and then surprises us.
Too funny! I just wrote about this ad campaign last week on my not-secret blog.
Here were my thoughts: http://goodgoodend.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-weight.html
great minds….um….
ed oriented minds?
Wow, Jess! I read that one but didn’t connect the dots that it was you who wrote it. My favorite line is, “Jesus doesn’t care if my thighs touch.” You have no idea how many times over the last week that has come to mind, sometimes with a giggle, sometimes with tears.
I with you both. I’m getting ticked at the thought that people have that losing the weight is what will bring them peace and happiness. Peace and happiness come from within, and I mean from God’s grace not from the food that is within!
Except I don’t get ticked off, really. I think that in many cases losing weight/healthy diet will bring people peace and happiness but it won’t solve all their problems. If we are angry depressed people, losing weight will make you a thinner angry depressed person.
This is so your field. As in the advert piece. As well; you always have some great insight and an objective space of wisdom.
I, on the other hand, or foot, or what have you do not. So instead, I will attempt to comment and then leave a link in response.
If this society continues to put so much focus on what a scale reads, we are only going to be in a perpetual cycle of watching the gazillion dollar industry reap the benefits on a monetary level. The ads can be overwhelming for anyone.
I don’t believe that anyone can “catch” an eating disorder, but I do feel that as a whole the focus on the physical body being a measurement of who we are, is perpetuating a problem.
Okay – long post? Nah – long comment. Sorry about that. Go watch this (if you like) :
die-a-beet-us!!!!
Ack. My love for you just has no end.
That’s exactly what bugs me about the Special K commercials–the women in them look like a pretty normal, healthy weight to me! I just think the company uses them to show what you “could” look like if you do their Special K challenge.
Another thing that’s annoying is that most ads for weight loss show just women–as if it’s okay for guys to be overweight! Such a double-standard…
How fat should the models be?
good question….fatter?
I used to dream of having lean and skinny body like the girls on Fashion TV, but i gave up on that loooong time ago. I amused myself by saying, I can’t be that skinny because I have big bones
), I enjoy life more, I enjoy all the delicious food I eat, feeling healthy and grateful for that.
You are so right about weight loss doesn’t guarantee happiness. The more I got obsessed with skinny body, the more I got depressed and unfortunately I ate more. I was unhappy with that.
But after I gave up on that dream and face the reality (that I have big bones
I just don’t like the Special K “diet”, because of COURSE you will lose weight if you eat 2 bowls of their (tiny) 1- serving cereal and a “sensible dinner”. DUH.
As for the scale thing….I think promoting happiness without a number is good, yes. But it still focuses on the scale, which isn’t good. Sigh.
Oh, true dat Dr. Stumpf <–!
I have never ate 1 serving of cereal in my life.
A box of cereal is scary to me, actually….it's a gateway drug. I avoid it.
special K with berries was a huge component of “the early years,” those complimenting my 89 pound existence. commercials like these are why i don’t watch commercials. they anger me. i wonder of how many eating disorders started with Special K?
*raises hand* it wasn’t BECAUSE of Special K, but it was the first and only ever “diet” I did, however I knew I was taking it more extreme than even they recommended thinking that was even “better”. I would never blame Special- K because I was the one who warped it, not them. I also had a choice to stop whenever I wanted, if I wanted. I eventually swapped Special-K for Cheerios though. Or Total. YOu know, ’cause Special K actually isn’t actually so healthy, other than the fact that marketing makes it appear that way…
Special K is full of sugar. I can’t even eat it.
LOL.
dear krayolablue91, thank you for raising your hand!!!
honey nut cheerios were divine, but i abused those in college (after becoming bulimic), so i will never have true fond memories of them, despite the absolute cuteness of the bee. and yes, peanut butter cap’n crunch, too. that was my, “okay, you now weigh 181, so what the hell?” cereal.
and “product19?” frankly, i don’t even know if the cereal still exists but in the six months of my eating practically nothing in 1999, i remember swapping the SpecialK for Product19 because Product19 had the least calories of any cereal on the shelf.
#SoGladThat’sOverWith! (i’m abusing hashtags in this comment sequence, i know ~ sorry, missy!). but thanks for creating a great forum for discussion on cereals. #cerealTherapy. LOL.
PRODUCT 19!
*mouth waters*
ALl this talk of cereal is TOTALLY triggering me….ahhhhh!! <– JK. I hate that word. But in all actuality..must stop thinking about cereal now. LOL.,
PS- JUst….one more.
Cracklin' Oat Bran?
http://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/KelloggrsquosCracklinrsquoOatBran.html
"CRACK" is right. Holy….OMG. So fattening, too delicious.
We will agree to disagree then. I just….I think people (ahem, NEDA) need to relax a wee bit. They tend to look at the world through ED Recovered glasses you know?
#biggirlpanties
agreed. but i’ll clarify my statement: i don’t use the word “recovered” in my healthy life-after-bulimia vocabulary, but my bulimic experience is not the primary reason for my anger.
it angers me that people are led to believe that by eating processed foods they are preventing against disease and weight gain when in reality, these refined carbohydrates, having been removed from their natural states, cause more trouble by producing energy most of which is stored as fat, unless of course one is sustaining their bodies from just 3 bowls of special K per day in which case they’ll never be aware of that fat and continue on the Special K diet for life which sucks nutritionally. big time. #hateSpecialKadvertising
AMEN! And again….AMEN!
I feel so passionately about the whole refined flour/grain/processed foods thing. (Though I indulge -veggie burgers are my weakness and lots of other things that are “freaky” in moderation)
Funny – I never even think about how the freaking DIET itself irritates me.
That is like …a whole nother. But good Lord the awful diets out there ….The FullBar diet? Cookie Diet?
LOL.
trying to respond to your “refined flour/grain/processed foods thing” comment, but i think that your comment tiers have been maxed out! haha! good job on creating this interesting post!
i’m so excited about your reply. we are definitely in passionate agreement about this subject matter and approach on valuing nutritional value instead of the “diet” value.
i am currently seeking a certificate in “plant based nutrition” at cornell university. it’s online, and it’s a fantastic series of courses. i think you would SO love it.
veggie burgers are your weakness and rule exception? hm, what is mine? ketchup. and KIND bars. #love!
I think it’s just annoying that people try to blame “something”. Those cookies that expand in your stomach scare me. I’d imagine them expanding in my stoamch and being all bloated and full 8X. Same with Full Bars. I always want to try them to see what it’s like, but am to scared in fear of what’ll happen. it’d either be true and expand in my stomach with a glass of water OR be a crock and simply make you full becuase you ate a bar and water. Since it say to “wait 30 minutes” and then sit down to eat dinner and pay attention to how you feel. Duh! Of course if you’re paying closer attention to how you feel you’ll be more intuned with your hunger XP lol.
I kind of take issue with the Special K people assuming that if someone is going on a diet he/she should eat Special K.
And what if I go on a diet with Special K (hypothetical, of course) and don’t lose weight? Will they pay me? That challenge sounds worthwhile.
If I were a person in need of losing weight, I’d probably go with oatmeal since it’s more filling and lowers cholesterol. Special K is just sugar + air + fortification with vitamins and minerals. Only the last part sounds particularly healthy to me, and most breakfast foods and cereals offer that!
Also, thank-you, this is the first commercial I’ve seen in MONTHS
Oh, yeah … I HATE the diet in particular, but in advertising you sell what you sell.. SO i was focusing on the message they were using to sell the cereal. I think the company was brilliant to come up with the concept of “diet cereal” … there was always healthy cereals but Kellogs decided to market a line of “diet” or “light” products in the 80s when that stuff was rampant. I think it was brilliant.
And sinister…lol.
I love marketing.
Now that you put it that way, it is pretty genius.
I also think that Cheerios heart-healthy (or whatever it’s called) diet where you lower cholesterol by some number of points is pretty genius.
(If only I could eat enough Cheerios for that to work!!)
You marketing people are pretty darn smart!!
I did at one point start to fully believe that if only I lost weight and got my ‘dancers body back’, I would be so happy, everything would be okay, all my problems would be solved, blah blah blah.
xx
not true.
And yet, I still find myself thinking that way all the time. I miss the feeling of ‘everything is going to be okay because I’m doing something about it’ that I used to get when I was restricting.
I see the same sort of craziness in people who diet a lot – they KNOW that losing weight isn’t going to make them happy and all their problems go away, it will make them smaller with the same problems. And yet, many of them who put the weight back on again, probably in part due to said problems, fall into the same trap again and again – that it will solve it all, make it better.
Human beings seem to lose their brains more than any other body mass when we embark on diets
I had to leave our scale in France (it was too heavy, huh huh!) and have felt so much freer. I asked the hubs not to get a new one – or at least to tell me if ever he was considering getting one. I explained that it was so triggering for me.
I recently relapsed, the stress of a new job and move, but there will always be reasons. I am not proud. Actually disappointed in me. Now I am trying to eat up the loss, and get yet freer. In honesty, I am only half way there.