I also thought that the reading this week was interesting. Especially the article on Kellogg's and the PowerPointon Jean Killbourne's book "Can't Buy Me Love." After reading, the first thing I thought of was the Kellogg's commercial where the slender woman is trying to fit herself into her jeans while the voice over says something like "lose 5 lbs in two weeks by replacing 2 meals a day with Kellogg's Special K." At first glance, maybe this commercial can positively influence someone to change their diet or eat special k to improve their health but the bottom line is (and this is where the Jean Killbourne influences come in): this particular advertisement is targeting women who are insecure about their weight and are willing to crash diet and live off cereal to look like the woman in the commercial who was probably underweight and never had a weight problem to start with!!!!
There are so many "health focused" (for profit) commercials these days and I can't help thinking that maybe these advertisements do more harm than good. First of all, many of the ads focus on looks, use actors/actresses that are not realistic sizes and try and make weight loss and good health seem like a quick fix "just eat this..." As a consumer, it is really difficult and frustrating to see these pseudo-health ads... I'm wondering how many public health campaigns we will need to create to counteract the other negative images in the media... Can we (as public health professionals) even compete?
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