That’s right, I’m assigning you some homework. Don’t worry – you don’t have to get out your mechanical pencils or your graphing calculators. All I want you to do is actually pay attention to the commercials you see on TV tonight. You don’t have to watch all of them (I love the fast-forward button on my DVR, too), but check out a few. And take note of how much body diversity you see. My guess? Hardly any.
Even though we live in a society where “the obesity epidemic” is blamed for everything from high health care costs to overpriced airline tickets (gotta pay for those seat belt extenders and extra fuel), and where we (and our children) must be bullied and shamed into thinking about our weight on a constant basis, where fat people are seen as lazy, slovenly, and gluttonous, our advertising shows us the same slim bodies all the time. Even in fast-food commercials! This one gets me the most. Watch a few McDonald’s commercials. Check out those skinny, youthful, happy kids munching on Big Macs and french fries at the campsite!
Hold up a minute. That can’t be right. We all know that only fat people go to the drive thru. Only fat people eat fried foods and potato chips and chocolate – even though in commercials for these foods, they are being consumed (and very, very much enjoyed) by thin people. Obviously the food industry doesn’t want to show us fatties mowing down on their products, but still. Would a little body diversity hurt anyone?
One campaign that I can think of that features a variety of body shapes and sizes is for Dove products. And hooray for them! But I doubt we’ll see women like that in food or clothing commercials any time soon.
If you can think of other examples of commercials that do include body diversity, I’d love to hear about them. (Although know that things like weight loss “before” shots don’t count.) I’m willing to bet the few examples that we can come up with predominately feature men, because we all know it’s more socially acceptable for men to have fatter bodies than it is for women. It’s also more acceptable to have a larger body if you are older. But commercials (especially for food and clothing) that feature younger people, women in particular? I can’t think of any.
