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When I was a kid, the only thing that came in a cereal box was a lick-on tattoo, or possibly something made of plastic. Now, if you’re to believe Kellogg’s ladies-only diet-brand Special K‘s new series of ads, your cereal box not only has the only prize women should ever care about (weight loss, of course!), but also a few hidden surprises–like a personality, which apparently, you can’t have if you’re even remotely overweight.
Or at least, that’s the premise behind the company’s ill-conceived “What Will You Gain?” campaign, which asks women what losing weight will reveal about themselves. On television and their prone-to-breaking (probably because so many bloggers are already irate about it) website, dozens of women (some of them paid advertisers) hold up their cereal boxes, decorated with “thought bubbles,” proudly, silently thanking Special K for what they’ve gained by losing weight by eating cereal instead of other food.
But their answers aren’t body-positive health benefits, like lower cholesterol or improved joint health. No, they’re aspects of personality. Because Special K seems to believe that the secret to unlocking traits like “Zeal” and “Sass” and “Certainty” is to lose weight.
About-Face’s brilliant blog post on this topic points out that this message and campaign play into the well-known “fantasy of being thin,” in which women (and men, for that matter) believe that thinness will, inevitably, lead to some kind of emotional promised land, and that, until they feel that imagined “Joy,” “Bounce,” “Moxie,” or “Contentment,” they simply aren’t thin enough. By assuring women that they’ll be able to feel these things after eating 2 bowls of cereal per day, Special K’s “What Will You Gain” campaign is playing directly into that.
What’s more upsetting, though, is that there are women out there who believe it. Sure, some of the images are of hired models, but others are self-submitted. Beautiful, diverse, healthy-looking women whose cereal boxes read “Sex Appeal” and “Self-Belief” and “Pride.” Traits which, because of campaigns like this (which insist that you need to lose weight to gain these things), as well as every other negative message that bombards women, women are being conditioned to believe that they can’t have without losing weight. To be sassy and bouncy and proud and sexy, you simply must buy Special K and get thin. You can’t have those things without it.
Maybe it’s just a poorly thought-out method of phrasing, or maybe Special K’s advertising minds thought that America’s insecure women needed a huge carrot to get them to follow the stick that’s their cereal diet (a carrot as big as, say, a personality). Or, maybe the men and women behind this campaign truly believe that joy and contentment are traits reserved for thin women. Whatever the reason, this method of marketing is unhealthy, focused on the wrong reasons, and, in the guise of being encouraging, fat-shaming and body-snarking. But then, maybe that’s how you sell a diet based on what you can find in a cereal box.
You can let Special K know what you think of the campaign here.
Images: Special K, and me
I think this attack is entirely unwarranted. It is not saying that only thin people can be sassy or sexy but it’s saying that a lot of people would find their inner sass or whatever if they could get passed their material and shallow obsession with weight loss. Insecurities and weight indubitably go hand in hand, blame Hollywood. I think the fact that special K is focussing on some of the mental health and confidence gains is much better than diets that focus on some unhealthy motivation like approval from men etc. Of course, no diet that consists of sugary cereal will be helpful, but I do not think the message is wrong.
I understand what this article is trying to say, and while I don’t disagree completely, I think it’s important to note that when you lose weight, you often do become more confident or gain other traits you didn’t necessarily have before. And that’s a wonderful thing!
I think we shouldn’t be so hard on Kelloggs here. They are probably just trying to convey that when someone reaches their weight loss goals, they feel sassy and proud.
And by the way, Special K makes a cereal with little chocolate bars in them! There isn’t even a kids cereal like that.
If that isn’t sympathetic to dieters, I don’t know what is.
Love Hanna’s photo…and also, what she’s saying. Boatloads of special K is NOT good for you! I don’t even want to think about how crappy I’d feel if I ate special K for breakfast every morning. Definitely not “joy” or “moxie.”
Hungry, maybe?
I was thinking “bloated.”