Before you read on, do make yourself comfortable and perhaps
have a nice cup of tae (tea in Irish just in case you are wondering) ready.
When the powerful campaign first hit out TV's, I felt it was
about time that a large company like Special K focused on positive body image
and instead of going I will be thin "I will gain confidence" from my
weight loss. As I dug a little deeper I found out that this whole positive dieting campaign had a mask that covered a dark secret that not many of us would uncover.
When the ads first hit the TV I was so happy, a large
company that is geared towards women that want to lose weight is giving dieting
a positive spin. I thought YES! ‘Finally dieting is not about the amount
of weight you lose, but what you gain from it.' The women in the TV commercial
where so apprehensive at first that there positivity after the experience
was/is very powerful. That is the mask right there! This is a very strategic
campaign, it was launched just before the schools went on holidays and just
before the height for the overseas summer season. I also discovered that this campaign
is a repeat...it was done in January 2011 also statically placed. Not directly
after the new year but long enough for other new year’s resolutions to fall true.
Then as I started to write this post I thought about how the
campaign actually works. They are saying that for you to feel 'gorgeous'
'confident' etc. you need do the special K challenge. In other words for you to have self-worth you
need to lose weight. This impels that women are not confident if they are over
10 stone and that they need to lose weight to be confident. So this message
could and properly has gone out to younger girls who, at the awkward nature of their
age will consume this message and do anything and everything in their power to
feel whatever it is they want to feel. What will these young girls gain form
this? More than likely an eating disorder of some shape or forum. Now that’s a
whole other ball game.
Screen shots of the stages on the Irish sights to follow
I even looked into the diet plan itself and was surprised, I
couldn’t find it on the Irish sight after going through the extensive questions
they had asked, I was also stunned that the sight refused you to go no further
if you chose a unhealthy weight, moreso I found no talk about the dieting world’s
most favorite topic, calories. There is no mention of the two week challenge.
If you are under 18 years you cannot singe up. The plot thickens! I then went
and looked at another Special K sight, this one happened to be American and
what I found was very different to the Irish sight.
The Intensive Questionnaire
The diet plan (notice what is beside 'FRIDAY')
It was a short questioner about what Special K products you
eat and an option of filling out what types of food you have bought in the past
30 days. You also have the option of starting you’re two week challenge when it suites you. That’s
all you have to choose from, there are no other options. Don't worry you can
still get all the calorie info you need while you stock your shelves up with Special
K products.
1. The Questionnaire 2.Diet Plan (Two Week Challenge)
This must mean that the EU or someone had some say that made Special K change how their dieting element works on these fine shores. It’s the
same on the UK sight as well so my gut is telling me it’s an EU matter but I
could be wrong on this.
It wasn’t always like
this, it was set up like the American system, where you dieted for two weeks,
ate two bowels of Special k (don’t worry you bought all the variations of it,
just so you would not get bored) so low call, low fat, low everything for
dinner and that was about 1000 calories. Yes you did lose weight, of course you
would, you are eating half of what you are meant to eat over the course of two
weeks. The weight just falls off, after your two weeks of pure torture you then
decided to treat yourself and slowly but surely the weight plies on and then
you are back in square one with a few extra pounds.
What we have to take into account is that ads only affects
us when we are interested in the product or need it. What makes us interested
in this? The media, the way they highlight celebrity’s weight, the fashion industry
with its so thin we could cry models that have been photo shopped to death. Yes
it has gotten better but there is a lot more work to be done.
For futher reading on this top please click
here and
here
