I was at the fish and chip shop last Sunday night. On the menu – grilled fish, chippies and a greek salad. Yum. While waiting for my order I spied some mag’s on a table. I picked up a copy of ‘Good Health’ which I have heard of, but never read. It looked good. Headlines like “Helping Your Daughter Build Self Esteem” and ”Goal Setting for Women” caught my eye and so away I browsed.
I didn’t get very far though as my eyes were inundated with ad after ad for diet and weight loss products. Never had I seen such a concentration of them in all my life. All the usual shockers jumped out at me, but it was this one that nearly sent me into a meltdown in front of the fresh fish counter.
Shame on you Optislim. Shame.
If it’s not bad enough that you produce a product that encourages people to replace two full meals a day with a powdered concoction claiming it is an “easy” way for them to lose weight – you now promote it with this horror ad. You are making a gross generalisation that any woman that looks like the one looking in the mirror is either unhappy with her appearance or should be. This is nothing more than an attempt at shaming women larger than a model size into thinking their body shape and size is unacceptable and that they have to do something to change it. A perpetuation of of current society’s obsession with the ‘thin ideal’ if ever I saw one.
Also – do you think it cute or sassy marketing to produce an ad that encourages women to aim for a body that does not have hips or a bum? Is it your intention to send women hurtling into a mind set that sees them want to lose so much weight that they literally diet themselves to skeletal proportions? Just stop and think for a moment about how dangerous, outrageously stupid and wrong that is. If your defence is that you are only joking - if you could see the look on my face right now you would clearly see I’m not amused. Again I say it. Shame Optislim. Shame.
Shame also on you ‘Good Health’ for making this claim - “Good Health will be different from any other (magazine) as every page will improve lives, bringing you the latest health news, views and breakthroughs” – and then cram your pages full of diet and weight loss ads. Have you had your head buried in the sand somewhere that you don’t know that fad diets and gimmicky weight loss products harm people’s health rather than promote good health? If you really want to do what you claim you do, then you won’t publish dangerous and demeaning ads like this one. Until you do, you can be assured the only thing I will find your magazine useful for is to wrap my fish and chips in.
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You are amazing!!
What a fantastic post!
It is really scary how we accept things like these ads into our lives without often a second thought – that we are subconsciously allowing them into our mindset.
Thank you so much for always bringing attention to these things and sharing your thoughts.
You are paving the way for a new way of thinking and hopefully a very image-healthy next generation.
Thank you for all you do
xxx
Flair to Remember – Thank YOU! You always leave such life affirming comments here. Appreciate that enormously.
Best Wishes,
Julie
It's incredibly difficult to find a women's magazine that is about health or well-being that isn't all about weight loss. I subscribed to "Body+Soul" because it was the ONLY magazine I could find that did not have weight loss headlines on the cover. This month's issue, though, had not one but TWO weight loss headlines on the cover.
We need a magazine for women that is NOT about weight loss!
Hi Chartreuse – I so agree! What a great magazine idea that could be.
I remember going to a IPL clinic , and in order to proceed with the IPL i had to make an appointment with their doctor. And she started telling me that I have 1st degree obesity ( mind you, I am a uk 16 ) and that if I don’t lose weight I will get diabetes. Of course they had a weight loss program. Now, reading your articles, I knew it was a gimmick, and I found out that weight and diabetes do not interrelate. So thank you ! It still is one of the worst experiences of my life
I am so happy that reading things here at Beautiful You has helped you in such a profound way Saby – that fills my heart with joy. I’m sorry you had such an awful experience but hope you things are much better for you now. You certainly deserve that.
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