Advertisement Spoof

holytaco.com

While I was looking for the advertisement that I wanted for my analysis, I came across this interesting spoof of a Slim-Fast ad. The ad is not endorsed or produced by the company, but it does raise a specific point, which I will also hope to address in regards to plans like Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig: how truthful are diet programs really being in an advertisement? After all, the people in the commercials all state that they lost this many pounds just by doing the program. So why shouldn’t this be enough?

I want to take a personal look at some of these programs, sa my mother tried a few when she was taching junior high school. She went through Weight Watchers, and after six months of sucking up her money and roughly twenty pounds later, she decided to give up going to the meetings and to just keep track of the number of points she ate. She also exercised while she was taking the plan, but when she was too busy to make it to the gym after she got off work at 7:30 after being there for twelve hours, she would normally come home and just keep track of the points. When she stopped working out, regardless of the points, she gained weight again.

Last year she started using Slim-Fast, either eating that or a small breakfast, or substituting lunch for a Slim-Fast shake or bar. She also works on fixing up the house (replacing cabinets and putting in new flooring, etc.). However, she has not been able to lose much weight. This raised two big questions with me. First, are these even safe for you. After all, they fill you up, but then you don’t eat your meal and miss out on ingesting some of the things that your body needs the most (carbs, protein, vitamins, minerals, and fat). Can we really say that it’s healthy for us to use? The other thing is how truthful are the advertisements? After all, most of the people on these ads are celebrities, and I highly doubt that they are only changing their dietary habits. Thay probably also have a personal trainer, and possibly even the time to work out more than the normal person. My big question is how ethical are these advertisements, and how truthful are they?