Has anyone seen the commercial featuring the cute, slightly chubby bellies and beautiful faces of three different women?
What's strange about this commercial? Think about it.
Got it yet?
What's strange is that it's the beauty of these chubby women that's being used to sell the product.
Those are not flat abs being shown teasingly on your TV screen.
The visual rhetoric of the diet industry is changing. This commercial suggests to me that the diet industry is co-opting the message of "healthy at different sizes." This is also the rhetoric, more or less, of the new Jenny Craig ads featuring Queen Latifah.
Judging from this new rhetoric, it would seem that the industry is no longer saying you have to be strictly thin. What hasn't changed, however, is the message that you need this product or that, in order to be "healthy" and "happy."
What's ironic is the concession to an idea of beauty that doesn't exclude fat for being fat, in the service of a product that was conceived as a method of losing weight. These images of beautiful, very feminine zaftig women are being used to sell a diet product. What's more, the bellies are portrayed in a glowing light. The models could not be any more appealing. Gone are the images of sad-sack chubby girls hiding at home, hating the sight of their bodies in the mirror, countered by images of kicky thin gals out on the town, representing the potential "afters."
As size acceptance gains ground, expect to see the diet industry scrambling to make its own image over in order to keep their products saleable. They appear not to be pushing self-hate so much anymore. But they're still hawking diet products, right?
What's strange about this commercial? Think about it.
Got it yet?
What's strange is that it's the beauty of these chubby women that's being used to sell the product.
Those are not flat abs being shown teasingly on your TV screen.
The visual rhetoric of the diet industry is changing. This commercial suggests to me that the diet industry is co-opting the message of "healthy at different sizes." This is also the rhetoric, more or less, of the new Jenny Craig ads featuring Queen Latifah.
Judging from this new rhetoric, it would seem that the industry is no longer saying you have to be strictly thin. What hasn't changed, however, is the message that you need this product or that, in order to be "healthy" and "happy."
What's ironic is the concession to an idea of beauty that doesn't exclude fat for being fat, in the service of a product that was conceived as a method of losing weight. These images of beautiful, very feminine zaftig women are being used to sell a diet product. What's more, the bellies are portrayed in a glowing light. The models could not be any more appealing. Gone are the images of sad-sack chubby girls hiding at home, hating the sight of their bodies in the mirror, countered by images of kicky thin gals out on the town, representing the potential "afters."
As size acceptance gains ground, expect to see the diet industry scrambling to make its own image over in order to keep their products saleable. They appear not to be pushing self-hate so much anymore. But they're still hawking diet products, right?
