Special K has come out with numerous television commercials promoting their Special K diet plan.
Their latest ad features a modelesque woman sitting at the breakfast table, staring forlornly at her breakfast bowl. Then, she opens her cabinet and smiles at the array of Special K cereals at her disposal.
In the opening scene of the commercial, you can clearly see the model’s protruding collarbone as she pushes her bowl away. It also doesn’t help that the model is wearing a boat-neck sweatshirt which greatly accentuates her collarbone.
It is absolutely ridiculous that Special K is insinuating the already-thin model needs to lose weight (or that someone that thin would actually think she needs to lose weight).
This ad is another example of how the media projects an unrealistic idea of thin. While Special K might be playing on the fact that women are unsatisfied with their bodies at any size, this is not the message they should be promoting. Rather, Special K should be promoting body acceptance.
– Maddy
AGH! I saw that commercial and thought the exact same thing: If they already show people who are extremely thin dieting, how will this make most of America feel? That one has to be even THINNER than the model/actresses in this commercial?
If anything, Special K is promoting unhealthy bodies if they believe these thin women should lost weight.
Ugh. Special K. It really does bug me when I see skinny skinny girls in the grocery store buying these kinds of products, nonfat/sugar free everything. Honey, this is what we in the profession call an eating disorder.
everyone has the right to watch their weight and eat healthy–overweight or not–but i agree, it wouldn’t hurt if all the dieters in commercials weren’t already skinny and weren’t so moody about their weight. like the commercial where the woman pulls out her bathing suit and shudders thinking about the upcoming swimsuit season–i’m sure she is the envy of millions of women who wished they had a body like hers to show off.
It does bother me when skinny models are in commercials that include losing weight because there are alot of people in the world who get influenced easily by those type of things so people need to be more careful on who they put in commercials. Although if you see a skinny person getting low fat or no sugar items, you really shouldn’t be bothered by that because like @kate people do have the right to watch what they’re eating if they want to healthy.
Have you ever looked at the ingredients in stuff like fat free cheese? Or read the research on limiting the amount of fake sugar in your diet? You know… to ward off stuff like… cancer. In addition, you might want to check out this website: http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html and learn the facts on foods containing fake sugars. I mean, which is better, this list of side effects or some normal sugar in MODERATION. And check out this article on the creation of fat free cheese: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119036015/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0. Are chemicals better than a little bit of fat, ALSO in moderation? I mean, yes, these foods are helpful when loosing weight, but making a life choice to include these products all the time just can’t be healthy.
YES! Thanks for posting this. Saw this commercial the other day and my wife and I just looked at each other aghast.
Thanks for speaking up.
My assumption would be that the woman in the commercial was not always so thin, but rather became so by following the Special K diet (which also explains why she already has a cupboard full of the stuff). Of course, the Special K diet is basically instructions for disordered eating in the first place, so your point stands.
at last someones noticed that the model isint fat only wearing a large top to make her look fat,aaaargh i hate this advert it makes me cringe please use a larger model we wernt all born yesterday.
Unfortunately, Special K is hardly an exception for this type of promotion. Rather than showing real women-attractive women with realistic body images, they choose to perpetuate the myth of ‘nymph-like’ bodies as ideal body images when the images are not realistic. Unfortunately, it’s our younger girls who are growing up thinking that the stick-thin, airbrushed perfect images they see in media and commercials are real. When did consumers get so stupid that we can only be fed outrageously fake images and told lies in order to decide to purchase products?