I don’t watch that much TV, but lately, when I do, it seems that every. single. commercial. is about weight loss, dieting, workout equipment, or some other related drivel. It’s starting to piss me off, and I pity anyone who is DVR-deprived. Today I saw one for some ab exerciser thingy, and a woman in the commercial said that “it made my waist smaller — and that’s what every woman wants!” No honey, not every woman wants a smaller waist. Some women *gasp* wish they could gain weight. Some women want to have babies. Some women want a PhD. Some women want world peace, or more sleep, or peanut butter. And some women…DUN DUN DUN…are happy with their bodies the way they are.
There’s another one for WLS that involves a couple listing thing they want to do that made them decide to get a surgically induced eating disorder lap band. Things like “I want to do karate with my son” and “I want to fly to Paris with my husband” That one makes me want to throw things at the TV and scream YOU CAN DO ALL THAT RIGHT THE HELL NOW!!!!!! But the fat-hating powers that be are veryvery invested in all of us believing that if we have TEH FATZ we are doomed to live miserable lives doing nothing we want to do, so we must be told that fat people cannot possibly do karate or fly to Paris, we are all doomed to a pathetic non-existence unless we allow the magic doctors to permanently damage our digestive tract.
My current favorite is the one with the little furry monster that is supposed to represent hunger, the commercial that equates eating when you are bored with eating when you are hungry. First of all, hunger is not a bad thing, it’s a beautiful little way our bodies tell us we need food, that stuff that supplies energy to our cells so we can, y’know, live and think and breathe and stuff. Eating out of boredom and hunger are two quite different furry little creatures. Unfortunately, 99.87%* of women have spent so much of their lives on diets that they have completely disabled the hunger mechanism, so they don’t know when they are hungry or not. The cure for eating when you aren’t hungry? STOP DIETING SO YOU CAN LEARN TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE! The cure for eating while you are bored? Step one: STOP WATCHING STUPID DIET COMMERCIALS, THEY ARE BORING. AND STUPID. AND THEY LIE. Step two: do something. Take a walk, or play a game, or go see a movie, or go shopping, or take a nap, or dance around your living room, or learn a language, or take karate or fly to Paris! You are allowed. The fat-hating powers that be are wrong.
*A very scientific number I made up
The absolute worst channel for this is Lifetime with the most offensive currently being the advertisement for DietTribe. I get angrier every time that I see it.
A group of women get fat because according to the commercial, all these women do is eat food together. So the show is about their “journey” through weightloss where of course they’re subjected to a drill sergeant trainer who has them learning to do the always useful football drills which every person can realistically add to their HAES program. Then we see the women falling over tires and crying because they have TEH FATZ and they’re soooo uncoordinated and emotionally weak. bleargh.
I’m fed up with being shamed every time that I just want to sit and watch Frazier. My life is not worthless because I’m not thin and I’m not ‘waiting for my life to begin’. I’m living my life now.
Ooh, I saw that fly-to-Paris commercial when I was home for Christmas. American commercials do indeed suck! If they’re not selling you some kind of weight-loss product, they’re selling you prescription medication for something else. It makes me appreciate Japanese TV. (Although I could do with fewer cooking shows and less cheesy documentaries.)
Obese, stop complaining. Lose weight before you sit next to me.
That fly-to-Paris commercial makes me SO angry!
Now, at my weight/fitness level, I wouldn’t want to do karate. Walking hurts sometimes, much less kicking, etc. Although I’m anti-bariatric surgery on the whole, I suppose I can understand a *fitness* argument for it.
But FLYING TO PARIS?! Fat people can’t fly to Paris?! I guess I’ve never been there, then, and all those photos and memories I have are fakes and delusions.
I couldn’t believe it when they included that as a reason, because it literally makes no sense in my mind at all.
Diane, stop complaining. Get a personality and some manners before you sit next to me.
Yeah, about that wanting to fly to Paris thing…a friend of mine is a magazine editor for a specialist industry and he flies all over the place to attend industry shows and visit manufacturers, etc. He weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pounds and has a bum knee. Somehow he can fly to Germany and Australia and England and South America…but come to think of it, he hasn’t been to Paris in a few years. Hmmmm….
But yeah, he can fly most places just fine and the only reason he can’t do karate is because of his knee.
And probably because he didn’t do it before he blew out his kneecap.
I saw that commercial yesterday and I wanted to scream. If the people pictured were bed-ridden because of size or healthy issues related to it, then it’d at least make some sense. It’d still be insensitive and self-serving and wrong to be shaming anyone, of course. But the people they showed just made it even worse. GRRRRRRR!
Amen, Erin. I also seem to have some Twitter friends talking about losing weight too. I am glad to hear it is not just me…
Yes this ‘flying to Paris’ thing gets to me too.
Why would this porker think that the only thing
stopping her from hopping on a plane is this gastric
device? Unless Air France told her that her ass takes up
2 seats and therefore double fare for her…The extra ticket
fee would still probably cost less than what is being sold in
the ad.