sashagoblin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sashagoblin) wrote2010-06-17 12:17 am
sashagoblin) wrote2010-06-17 12:17 am
Why Those Boots Ads Piss Me Off
Rantette of the day is over the boots ads with the slogan 'losing weight is the best thing I've ever done', and here is why. Many reasons, see fbk, but quite apart frommy own personal gnarghhh, here's a few:
Fact is (I'm having a nervous breakdown over work here,or i'd find the papers) a staggeringly high proportion of diets fail (it's in the region of 90%) and something like 75% of women (again, regardless of size, read Susie's Bodies on this) are on a diet at any one time. And they fail. Very few people have the psychological equipment to make permanent changes to their diets without making other life changes, because they need food or dysfunctional eating as a source of comfort and nurture missing from other aspects of their lives or to patch over a crippling lack of self-worth (which is precisely what those ads fuel. They fuel it in me, with a culturally-approved, unusually small body, work i love and am passionately engaged by, an extensive network of close and very supportive friends, so what it must be like for others without those things I dread to think. Especially the work thing, because my work is *mine* and self-expressive in a way most people's isn't). People see those ads, feel miserable and hate themselves, comfort eat, go on a diet, feel miserable (even if they temporarily lose weight, because it's very rare for underlying psychological life or self-worth issues to be addressed), break their diets, feel worse, comfort eat, see the ads, diet... the list goes on.
If it's (supposedly) a medical campaign, why not 'clinically obese? we can help!' or suchlike? Something that emphasises 'only worry if you're at genuine medical risk?' (with the usual caveats about what that actually is? Something that doesn't imply *everyone* would be better if they lost weight? Playing on deep-seated insecurities is ultimately counterproductive because losing weight is not often a miraculous solution to people's ongoing psychological problems, and in fact can exacerbate them because it can bring up other ones ('if i'm thin now, and thin is supposed to me more attractive, what if nobody loves me?' 'if i'm thin now, people might want me, and i'm really scared of initimacy/rejection') are two obvious ones (both hinging on contemporary culture's unrealistic and damaging focus on thinness as preferable to abundance). And without tackling those issues, their diets will fail and they'll feel worse and a vicious cycle of the transposition of feelings onto food will be perpetuated. Whereas if popular culture gave people acceptable body types that aren't necessarily minimal and didn't tell people that all their efforts in their jobs or lives or relationships mean nothing compared to food, we might be able to solve the problems.
Fact is (I'm having a nervous breakdown over work here,or i'd find the papers) a staggeringly high proportion of diets fail (it's in the region of 90%) and something like 75% of women (again, regardless of size, read Susie's Bodies on this) are on a diet at any one time. And they fail. Very few people have the psychological equipment to make permanent changes to their diets without making other life changes, because they need food or dysfunctional eating as a source of comfort and nurture missing from other aspects of their lives or to patch over a crippling lack of self-worth (which is precisely what those ads fuel. They fuel it in me, with a culturally-approved, unusually small body, work i love and am passionately engaged by, an extensive network of close and very supportive friends, so what it must be like for others without those things I dread to think. Especially the work thing, because my work is *mine* and self-expressive in a way most people's isn't). People see those ads, feel miserable and hate themselves, comfort eat, go on a diet, feel miserable (even if they temporarily lose weight, because it's very rare for underlying psychological life or self-worth issues to be addressed), break their diets, feel worse, comfort eat, see the ads, diet... the list goes on.
If it's (supposedly) a medical campaign, why not 'clinically obese? we can help!' or suchlike? Something that emphasises 'only worry if you're at genuine medical risk?' (with the usual caveats about what that actually is? Something that doesn't imply *everyone* would be better if they lost weight? Playing on deep-seated insecurities is ultimately counterproductive because losing weight is not often a miraculous solution to people's ongoing psychological problems, and in fact can exacerbate them because it can bring up other ones ('if i'm thin now, and thin is supposed to me more attractive, what if nobody loves me?' 'if i'm thin now, people might want me, and i'm really scared of initimacy/rejection') are two obvious ones (both hinging on contemporary culture's unrealistic and damaging focus on thinness as preferable to abundance). And without tackling those issues, their diets will fail and they'll feel worse and a vicious cycle of the transposition of feelings onto food will be perpetuated. Whereas if popular culture gave people acceptable body types that aren't necessarily minimal and didn't tell people that all their efforts in their jobs or lives or relationships mean nothing compared to food, we might be able to solve the problems.
And fewer people would feel ugly and like shit.