Two adverts have stood out to me of late - the first is a Special K advert, which shows a young woman in her red swimsuit, looking horrified and embarrassed each time a photo is taken of her - she hides behind anything that will disguise her "fat belly" - which in reality, looks perfectly un-fat and quite normal. The girl in the advert IMO has a perfect figure. Yet she's portrayed as being overweight.
Cut to said girl simpering and eating Special K, then cut to her again in her red cossie on the beach, being photographed without any horror of her fat belly. Only she looks exactly the same as before. WTF? It would have been more realistic and honest if the advert had shown an 18 stone woman heaving and sweating her way around Mallorca while eating chips, and being horrified at having her photo taken . However, it would take a more severe diet than 2 bowls of Special K to help her lose weight.
The second advert is the hideous one involving 3 kiddies who try to count how many "Snap, Crackle and Pop" are in a bowl of Rice Krispies. They are seen in the kitchen with mum, who herself eats a bowl of Krispies and simpers at them as they attempt to count the silly cereal.. If you observe you will see that mum is pear-shaped with the beginnings of a nice little muffin-top. Why wasn't THIS woman used for the Special K advert?
So this says to me that Rice Krispies are trying to curry favour with mums by portraying a mum "realistically" - ie - slightly overweight - which a good percentage of them are. Yet the Special K advert is portraying a woman with a perfect figure as fat. I am assuming that the Special K woman is presumed to be single and childfree. Come to think of it, ALL the Special K women have very nice and non-muffin-top figures. Why??
Why are advertisers so afraid to use PROPER overweight woman in diet adverts? Even ads like Weight Watchers only use a fast glimpse of a black and white photo of a fat woman, before showing her in all her slim glory pulling out the waistband of her old size 18 jeans.....
The reality of society today is that we are surrounded by overweight people, yet advertisers still seem to be in denial or are afraid of reprisals by showing overweight people. Unless you're a "mommy" and then it's OK to be portrayed as muffin-topped.
What's most bizairre is that both cereals are owned by KELLOGGS. Yet they seem to not know the difference between a normal size woman and an overweight one.
Dove soaps trumpet that they use "real women" in their adverts, whoc have realistic figures and realistic curves, and good on them for using non-airbrushed stick insects....so why do food and diet companies insist on NOT using "realistic" overweight women for THEIR adverts?
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