Lots of junkfood ads have very thin people in their ads, despite junkfood causing obesity.
Should companies be forced to use more realistic looking consumers in their ads.
For example,this ad has zero fat people. and yet a few litres a day makes you really fat really quickly,
You’d be accused of fat shaming. I’m certain of that.
And alcohol ads should be banned from showing people getting girls when they drink
it never works for me
Heck, when there’s a Coke ad that features an animated polar bear and seal, I demand it end realistically, with the bear jumping into the water, killing the seal, dragging the carcass onto an ice floe and eating it, while enjoying a nice refreshing Coca-Cola.
Fast food causes obesity?? Huh.
I’m pretty skinny and I eat enough junk food for about 3 people. I’m one of those people that can open up a thing of cookies and be done with them by the end of the night. I probably eat more crap food than good food. I get comments like “I can’t believe your teeth haven’t rotted out of your head”* or “it’s gonna catch up with you someday” or “you must have the metabolism of a chipmunk”. Most of the side of the family that I took after is pretty lean though, I think I’m just lucky. I was skin and bones through high school and have filled out a bit as I got into my late 20’s and 30’s. I was 120 in high school and at 34 I think I’m 140. I’ve always been one of those people that can’t put on weight if I try, I can also eat really really ‘good for you food’ and not lose weight.
I remember one day hearing or reading a comment that making fun of people for being fat is just as bad as making fun of people for being skinny and I couldn’t agree more. I got so effin sick of people telling me how skinny I was in grade school and high school. I did everything I could to put a few more pounds on. I always compared myself trying to put weight on to an overweight person trying to shed weight. Try as I might it just didn’t happen. Even now, if I knew it wouldn’t just go right to my belly, I’d love to have 10 or 20 more pounds and while I probably will eventually put that weight on (eating the way I do), it’ll probably take 10 years.
But I digress.
Anyways, let’s keep in mind, that guy was drinking a half a gallon of coke a day. That’s a lot of coke. I don’t think commercials should have to put overweight people in their ads because some people over indulge. I really don’t think they should have to put overweight people in their ads because some people over indulge to prove a point. Should soap ads say ‘you won’t be as hot as her if you use our soap’ and ads for cameras say ‘it’s the photographer, not the equipment that’s important in taking a good picture, don’t think buying this expensive camera will make you take good pictures’.
Almost everyone falls for the camera thing at some point, but we don’t warn people about it. Not that it’s a perfect comparison, but I don’t think we should have to warn people that drinking 10 cans of soda a day might make you pack on a few pounds. The nutritional facts are there. The guy in the article, if I did my math right, drank 25 pounds of sugar in a month, WTF did he expect to happen. Wow, mind blown.
*I usually just roll my eyes at them and say ‘ya know, I do brush my teeth’.
This just in: advertising is deceptive (but not untruthful).
If you do this, you’d still see ads being misleading; they’d use models on the lowest end of overweight or athletic guys with lots of muscle who aren’t thin.
LOL
A couple of things I thought of:
A)That ad has zero fat people, it also has zero people vegging out in front of the TV. All those people are living very active lifestyles we have people: running, riding bikes, horsing around with their friends, playing soccer, dancing and swimming (and then dancing again). So if the ad should show that drinking coke makes you fat, shouldn’t it also show that living an active lifestyle can keep you in shape? If those people did all those activities, they may have burned off the calories from whatever they drank. On top of that, they probably lead active lifestyles to begin with or they wouldn’t have made it to the end of the night without being pretty wiped out.
It goes both ways.
B)You suggest that junk food ads can’t use skinny people…why don’t you go ahead and give us a minimum weight that people have to be to appear in junk food commercials? If someone is 5’5 and female, do they need to be 180? 200? 250? Is 150 above being skinny to you? 140? 120? It was your suggestion, you make the call, I’d like to hear it.
C)This sort of relates to the first part. A few years back there was some Food Network show that involved a panel of judges. One of them was a pretty slim female and she said she often got asked how she could pig out all the time like that and still maintain her figure. Her response was that 1)She only ate like that for the hour or two that they were filming and it was only once a week during filming season (a few months a year) and 2)She worked out 2 hours a day, every day. It’s kinda funny to think that what you see someone do on TV for 10 seconds is how they live their life. People see this food judge put a few forkfuls of food in their mouth once a week and assume she lives her life eating constantly. People see a character in a TV show that’s sick and will see the actor IRL and ask him how he’s doing.
I don’t think the ad companies should have to use fat models because people think it’s okay to drink 2 cans of Coke instead of having a turkey sandwich for lunch, Coke shouldn’t have to spend money to fix that.
Is it like “cigarettes cause cancer”?
Yeah well, one cigarette per year is no worse than all the other crap we breath, but deliberately manipulating nicotine products to make them more addictive and swamping the public with enticing advertising isn’t exactly giving the people what they want.
Well, to be fair, showing young, healthy, active people smoking and making people think they can be healthy, active, young, pretty and smoke is probably giving them exactly what they want. Doesn’t mean they’ll get it, but it’s what they want.
Just like the Coke ad is showing people what they want. People want to think think that if they drink Coke they’ll have a fun active lifestyle. They won’t (unless they already did), they’ll have the same lifestyle they already did. You’ll also look just like you do know if you use the soap that that hot model (male or female) is using and your love handles are going to hang out if you put on those clothes…what you want isn’t what you’re going to get, but it’s still what you want and a lot of people will buy the product because they think they’ll get what they see. Deceptive, maybe, and I think we all fall for it once in a while, but I don’t think the advertiser has to use overweight models in junk food ads or take crappy pictures with their $1000 camera or show People Of Walmart in their clothes just because they know some consumers will probably buy ill fitting shirts and can’t take a good picture or will eat too much.
I think the ad that the OP used was actually a really bad example of what he was trying to portray. It showed in shape people using their product, but they all appeared to be living a very active life style that would likely lead to them looking like that. What would be deceiving is if they looked like that but had 6 of them piled up next to them as they were falling asleep on the couch in front of TV (and made it appear as though they did that every day).
Valid point. I dunno. Need more studies I suppose. When we see beautiful fit people engaging in beautiful activities, do we think, “if I drink coke I will be like that?” or do we think “if I drink coke, I better do a looooooot more of that.”
Or do we think “These people are good looking. Looking at good looking people is a positive experience. I am happy. Product product product.”
Fat people aren’t even in ads for clothes for fat people. Fat people aren’t fun to look at (I am a very fat person). Fat people aren’t eye catching.
Ads aren’t public service announcements to tell you how to live your life. they are pieces of media that evoke emotional responses in people that they then associate with the product being sold.
That’s a horrible idea. Junk food doesn’t cause obesity. People cause obesity.
You can eat as much junk food as you want and not gain weight as long as you burn off those calories. That’s not to say it’s healthy obviously, but still.
They don’t if you cook them right.
That ad should be banned not because it has zero fat people but because it’s as cheesy as a pound of Camembert left in your car trunk all summer. It’s so precious and cloying–so overdone–that you need to wash your eyeballs after seeing it.
It’s be a better turn for everyone if, instead of focusing on the person, they would focus on the food! Car manufacturers are not allowed to show you a Mercedes and then give you a Pinto when they get your money. Why are restaurants allowed to show you something that in no way, shape, or form, resembles anything they have ever produced. I thought there were laws about truth in advertising?
I’d much rather see that agenda got pushed, to be honest. That ought to put people off their junk food, at least as effectively as a tubby person in the back of some 30 second ad would, I should think!
Perhaps the next vegetarian dish you see advertised we can show a pasty looking middle class woman looking in ill health. The next Vegan ad can show a crowd of people turning up their nose at some awful gas the Vegan has just passed.
Here’s an idea; why dont we let people get own with their lives and stop trying to preach.
I don’t think this is a very good idea but I can say, if I see one more commercial where a thin, beautiful, 90 pound woman moans and groans her way seductively through a bag of chocolates I’m going to disappear into my room for a while. Those ads are porn, pure and simple.