babble

I think it’s been great to read so many posts in the fatosphere in the past few days, talking about NYE resolutions and such. So this morning, what did i see in my rss feeds? From the NY Times, we have: As the Ball Drops, Dieting Companies Take Positions Nearby.

This year, both Weight Watchers and Special K are sponsoring electronic billboards in Times Square, the most televised (and, perhaps, densely populated) location on New Year’s Eve. Revelry, it seems, is all well and good, but self-improvement must never stray too far out of the picture.

See, i’m all for self-improvement, but Dieting Does Not Equal Self Improvement. The more i think about this, the more it really pisses me off - this idea that self improvement is as “easy” as shedding a few pounds. This is just a delightful parfait of lies - anyone who’s been paying attention knows that losing weight is only “easy” if you’re genetically thin and somehow gotten above your body’s set point. Other than that, it’s beyond futile and more in the realm of potentially damaging.

So not only is dieting not “easy”, it just plain doesn’t work. Then we have the other notion that losing weight is the most important means of “self improvement”. Well, some people would say that the body is a part of the self, therefore improving the state of the body is a part of the self improvement process. Y’know, i’m okay with that. I can deal with that. Just as a house in disarray can cause anxiety in its inhabitants, a body in disorder causes distress to the soul. I got that. Good times.

Where i disagree is the notion that a fat body can only be in distress, it cannot be healthy. The soul that resides in a fat body can only be anxious and disordered, upset. So many people seem to just accept this as a matter of fact. “Well, of course you hate yourself - you’re fat!” What utter bullshit.

Oh, but wait! There’s more to the article:

The Kellogg Company, which makes the Special K brand, will take over three of the largest digital billboards in Times Square for two minutes starting at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31.

“That’s the biggest moment of self-evaluation of the year. We want to be part of the resolution,” said Per Jacobson, a creative director at Leo Burnett in Chicago, which created the ads. Leo Burnett is owned by the Publicis Groupe.

Wow. Predatory, much? How sad is it that the “biggest moment of self-evaluation of the year” is generally spent partying, drinking, and doing god-knows-what in public? What does that really say about our culture - not that we do these things to celebrate the new year, but rather that this is supposed to be done in conjunction with self-evaluation? I’m not sure i want to know. Oh, and it gets so much better:

The campaign will continue throughout January with two 15-second television spots and near-total ad domination of New York’s Penn Station and Boston’s South Station.

“What we’ve learned is that women resolve to lose weight not just on New Year’s Eve, but throughout the whole month of January,” said Kim Miller, vice president for marketing for Kellogg’s morning foods division. “Even if they fall off track, they will re-commit. So we’re working hard to make sure we’re there at every point of recommitting.”

I’ve had stalkers that weren’t that persistent. Actually, my first thought when i read this was to compare it to the drug dealer who wants to make sure you’re really hooked. Of course they want you to be committed: you’d make them rich by spending scads of cash on their products.

Not to be outdone, Weight Watchers International has introduced what it says is its biggest and most integrated ad campaign, and which also relies in part on the Reuters billboard in Times Square. Other components are television spots, print ads, an Internet video and a MySpace page.

Granted, we already heard about their latest campaign from Brian over at Red No. 3, so i suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to hear that they’re getting in on the NYE billboard action as well.

The main trend in the weight loss market today is the emphasis on wellness rather than dieting, said Phil Lempert, the editor of supermarketguru.com and a food marketing and consumer trend consultant. This month Kraft Foods, a major competitor to Weight Watchers and the owner of the popular South Beach line of frozen diet foods, changed the name of the brand from South Beach Diet to South Beach Living.

This is just incredibly sneaky and slippery, and if i thought it wouldn’t work then it probably wouldn’t irritate me nearly as much as it does. I kind of expect companies to lie to me, these days. After all, they’re trying to sell me something; generally i’m of the opinion that a good product needs no sales pitch: it’s worth will be recognized without needing any sort of excessive hawking. Basically, the harder someone tries to push something at me, the less i’m interested in having a damn thing to do with it.

There’s Yet Another Layer of this parfait of deceit: promoting self-improvement while utilizing and encouraging methods involving self-deception. It’s not a “diet”, it’s a “lifestyle choice”.

To this end, the company is soliciting user-generated content. Through Jan. 25, people will be able to send stories to the Weight Watchers Web site about the strangest or craziest diets they have tried.

Sharing “strange and crazy” weight loss strategies? Well, they’re doing it as a bonding experience! Certainly they would never encourage anyone to indulge in unsafe behaviours. Think they’ll add a “do not try this at home” disclaimer, for what it’s worth?

Joyce King Thomas, chief creative officer of McCann Erickson New York, said that this type of interactivity, along with the MySpace page, is a modern take on the classic Weight Watchers group meeting. “There is already the community in Weight Watchers — it’s a lot about community, sharing recipes, sharing experiences — so we are just trying to make the community bigger,” she said.

It’s terrifying to consider that the dieting companies are taking notes from and actively emulating the pro-ana communities, but when the terminology is the same, and the techniques and strategies are the same… what other conclusion are we supposed to come to?