Get me some holy water and a priest, there's an Advertising Executive about!

[sparkindarkness]

As has previously been apparent, I am not the biggest fan of the advertising industry - especially in relation to "health" (using the term loosely) foods.

So it should come as no surprise that the latest special K advert caused the usual frothing fury


A resume of the advert (since I can't you tube it): you look at a series of photographs. In each is a woman in a red bathing suit. When she sees you are looking at her, the woman in the photograph instantly hides, especially trying to hide her stomach. The implication is that she's fat and ashamed to be seen in a swimsuit.

She is not fat. Not by any stretch of the imagination is she fat. She doesn't need to lose weight - and trying to get women to buy cereals to lose weight because THIS is the standard for what fat is? GRRRR

Then we wonder at anorexia. Well, we don't. But the advertising execs profess to have nothing to do with it.




Of course what's vaguely tangentally amusing is if you pull up their website and click on the little nutritional info: http://www.specialk.com/ you find out that one bowl of special k WITHOUT milk contains 9% Of your daily salt intake (and can I have another slap to whichever cunning person thought it was a good idea to hide salt content by only labelling sodium content?) and they've craftily not decided to tell you how much of your daily intake of sugar that 4g per 31g bowl makes up.


Which returns me again to my age old rant - how dumb are people. It's low FAT CEREAL. Since when does Cereal actually HAVE fat in it? We're talking toasted grains, fat content nil ANYWAY. Sugar is the culprit in cereals - and you'll find none of these wholegrain, high fibre (A cereal with wholegrains and high fibre! Well damn, who'd have thought it! Next they'll be selling us orange juice - now with vitamin C!) is screaming about sugar contents. Hmmm, funny that.

Comments

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

Actually, things like toasted muesli and so on are quite high in fat. But Special K is a loathsome food. Rolled oats should be good enough for anyone :) (in organic yoghurt, yummy!)

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I like dry, raw rolled oats with a little milk on them. I like yogurt. You can make your own at home and considering the prices it's economical to try it. I also want to make cheese but that's somewhat tougher.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Ah? I wouldn't have expected that

Give me rolled oats and yoghurt! When I have my cereal binge (I won't eat them for months then for a week I'll eat nothing but) they're top of my list

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Reading a tabloid once, I saw an actress described as " at 5'6" and 130 pounds, a size 2".

When I was 5'6", and 130 pounds, I was a size 9.

Just a little more stupidity for you, in case you were running low.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I am sure the sizes women use are completely random depending on what the advertisers want you to beelieve

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

I despair of a nation of people who cannot figure this shit out for themselves but need labels screaming 'low fat' and 'low calorie' to help them.

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

Most of us don't. Sure, the actual calorie content is helpful - and don't get me ranting about the yoghurt I had where the calorie content was put "per 100g" but the yoghurt pot contained 125g.

The really sad thing is that people are so ill educated about food that they do need the screaming labels. That's just scary. I learnt about food and nutrition at school. I appear to be one of the last generation that this is the norm for - in fact many of my peers didn't get it either!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

There's legal reasons why many things need to be put per set volume, in Canada at least.

I think it's for standardisation, so they can't get a "less calories" impression by putting a smaller serving size on the same cup. Of course, that doesn't affect how big the actual cup is.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Take the Special K Serving - 31g.

Now I'm bad at judging measures, but 31g doesn't sound much at all

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I want the fat and other fat related junk such as mono and diglycerides listed not some nebulous "low" this or "low" that. I also want the amounts of the ingredients listed their 'trade secret' be damned.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Ah but they rely on people not reading the packet because then they may find out that "low fat" really means "lower fat than lard fried bacon covered in cheese."

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I bet it's lower fat than donuts!!!. ;)

Bacon makes it's own lard. Isn't that fantastic! Fry your eggs in it. Along with all the goodies in a full English breakfast. That breakfast is going to be 'breakfast' till I die!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I can't eat that breakfast in a monring (I have an issue with eating food before noon) but for a nice brunch? Ooooh yes. Bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast (I can pass on the fired bread), maybe some beans best breakfast EVH nom nom nom nom

Even better if you put the bacon in the pan first then fry everything in the lovely juicyness, I once knew someone who then cracked eggs over all the nice dead pig flesh in the pan to fry it all toegther into one giant fat aturated fried-egg-breakfast-omlette-thingy

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Especilaly when the screaming liesssss!

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

Apparently the reason Special K is "better" than the average comparable cereal is because it's fortified with vitamins and minerals. However, if you compare it with a similar ceral (for example Rice Krispies or Cornflakes) it contains more salt and more sugar than the "high fat" varities.

The reasoning for the fortification is because "people on a diet may not get all the vitamins and minerals they need." The idiocy of this is amazing. All "sensible" diets (such as Weight Watchers" emphasise the "eat fruit and veg" - these are often foods which are considered to be "free" and not part of the calorie allowance, and dieters are encouraged to fill their plates full of steamed veggies. How, if you're following that advice, you suddenly need extra vitamins in your cereal is beyond me.

I recall also that Special K is higher in protein - like we need this fortified in the average Western diet.

As mentioned above, some cereals do contain a lot of fat. But they tend to be the ones packed with nuts; which makes the fats involved "good" fats anyway.

(I heard the rumour that the iron content was due to iron filings. There's a reason my cereal of choice is Weetabix, porridge or Shredded Wheat.)

It is indeed truly bizarre - and I hate the Special K adverts with a passion. I also hate the concept of "low fat" chocolate bars being needed to enable one to diet. I may be slightly biased about this as I'm currently trying to loose weight; but every food advert seems to either push some high fat / salt / sugar item of processed junk; or be promoting some low fat / salt / sugar item of processed junk. It's bloody annoying.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Apparently the reason Special K is "better" than the average comparable cereal is because it's fortified with vitamins and minerals.

I still remember the amusement when a UK nutritionist discovered that the Corn Flakes box was actually more nutritious than the contents.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

But it advertises itself as healthy so it is! even if it is dripping in salt and sugar.

Personally i've never seen the point of corn flakes, rice crispies et al - they all taste of NOTHING. I can't understand eating food that is not even remotely enjoyable

If your diet needs additives to make it healthy - then it's not a diet. it's starvation and/or stupid imo.


Low fat chocolate bars? Don't get me started! Have you seen the SUGAR content of those things?!

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

I quite like cornflakes and rice krispies. But no, so with you on low fat chocolate bars. And they taste dire. I'd far rather have a mini bar of Green and Blacks or similar, where the cocoa content means it tastes of chocolate. If you're going to have a treat, have a treat!

[suryaofvulcan.livejournal.com]

The one I find even more ridiculous is for Shredded Wheat. The ad goes on at length about how healthy and unadulterated it is, and then it's followed by a quick addendum promoting the 'honey-nut' version, which is of course loaded with fat and sugar.

Oh and someone up there ^^ mentioned the 'amount per 100g' - that's the legal requirement, and it allows you to compare products across a range of differing pack weights. Manufacturers can optionally declare an 'amount per portion' as well, but what we found happening there was that some foods were given ridiculously small portion size - for example your 125g yogurt pot might have been listed as containing 2 portions, not one. At least if you know the amount per 100g, ie the percentage, you can calculate how much fat is in the amount you're eating.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Agreed (and there's a honey special k too!) but even more fun was the Weetabix week - where they TOLD YOU to slather honey and chocolate and nuts on their cereal in a desperate attempt to make it taste of anything

[jerril]

I disagree, actually. Weetabix taste lovely on their own with a bit of milk.

Which is odd, coming from me, because I'm normally "OMG PUT MORE SPICES ON" person.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

BHleh this is why I'm not a cereal person - most of them taste of cardboard

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

the single most annoying thing about that advert? Not only was she perfectly slim in the befores (and don't get me started on why not!slim =/= should hide in shame) she's *exactly the same size* in the afters.

[seryan.livejournal.com]

This is because in the 'before' pictures, they frowse your hair, shoot the photo without makeup, put you in clothes that are the wrong size, don't touch it with Photoshop, and have you slouch. In the 'after' pictures, the stylist and the makeup artist have been after you, you're wearing tailored clothes that fit, standing up straight, and have been airbrushed. The pics are probably even taken on the same day. It's awful.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

no, I mean, in this add they haven't even done the 'you too could loose weight with Photoshop' thing - it's the same model in the same swimming costume, and what they've sold you is the right to point to a packet of cereal and say 'see, I have fulfilled my morning's quota of feminine guilt about needing to eat'.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Aye, I wonder if that's hwy they made her hide so fast - to hide it has made no difference at all!

[tinimaus.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I saw a girl that was clearly underweight (probably about a British size 6) referred to as a 'plus-size model' (no, I don't watch these modelling shows, but I was going round the horn to see what else was on).

I'm a British size 16. I suppose I'd be a exponential-scale model.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I shall have to remember that term!

And I can't speak for straight men, but I think the "exponential scale model" are way more attractive than the bony waifs

[seryan.livejournal.com]

Ads like that are why I just don't buy Special K. Just...just ugh!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Bad advertising, unhleathy and tasteless. Sooo many reasons

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

I tend to find I don't have a problem with advertising because I don't watch TV. Only time I see adverts (I can mentally block them online and in newspapers/mags) is when I go to the cinema, and at that point I am always convinced that my not watching TV is a damn good idea.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It just makes me despair at just how low they go with their adverts - so very very deceptive

[only-playing.livejournal.com]

This is one of the things that is wrong with this world. Because popular culture and advertisements put so much pressure on being beautiful, handsome, skinny, muscular, having white teeth, a tan, perfect hair, makeup, nails, powdered, perfumed, driving the perfect car, having the perfect house, 2.3 kids, white picket fence, dogs that won't shed, perfectly ironed clothes, $500 shoes, etc, etc, etc. Nobody looks like that and lives like that in the real world! And the people that do, have a $1000 a week cocaine habit cause they are under so much stress to be perfect.
/rant

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

They present utterly impossible images - anyone cna look beuatiful with that much technology and script work behind the scenes. And people just end up feeling inferior to the impossible perfection presented

[enigmatism75.livejournal.com]

A Chef where I used to work tried the Special K diet once. After a week she reckoned all it did was make her fart and that was why the advert at the time was women leaning against things to make a 'k'. They were all farting. :D