Protein World "beach body" adverts

[RunkyJam]

Anyone else raging about these?

I've complained to the ASA and just signed a petition taking off over at change.org

www.change.org/p/proteinworld-arjun-seth-remove-are-you-beach-body-ready-advertisements

Absolutely BONKERS this was approved IMO.

I seriously recommend Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey as the classic text on this. It was published forty years ago, but apparently the message still isn't widely known.

shove where does it say that? Because I don't see that at all. And let's not start getting patronising.

Shasta protein world is a fitness industry company. So the advertising is fitness industry based. Where women are encourage to be strong and gain muscle, while losing fat if they do wish. The fitness industry works on the fact that gaining muscle supports fat loss.

There is a lot of inferring going on that isn't based on anything that is in the advert.
No where does it say anything about pleasing men or about having to reach a certain standard.

Actually shove its very much aimed at 'her'

shove I am aware of that history, but think you are inferring an awful lot here that isn't there.
Stating that they are "telling women they couldn't go on a beach because they didn't look good enough FOR MEN." when it says no such thing - hence, your inference.

I think what is unacceptable is the message "if you don't look like this, you are not ready for your body to be seen on a beach" - the world doesn't want to see you unless you are this slim and toned and proportioned like this. That's unrealistic - many people could never achieve that shape (I can be a healthy weight, and perfectly capable of carrying a baby thanks, and look completely unlike that – I'm tall, athletic and flat-chested) –and also, it's suggesting only the very thin end of the weight scale is OK. Not only can you be much bigger than that and still be healthy and beautiful; I actually don't think it's OK to imply anyone is unacceptable to look at.

I don't think it's specifically, necessarily, for the male gaze, as a lot of women's concern about their appearance is to do with other women's assessment of their bodies; however it comes from a misogynist tradition and is sexist in that it's a women who'd being told to make herself look acceptable and conform to a narrow definition of what that is.

What makes it worse is that it's diet pills –I'd have slightly (very slightly) less beef with it if it was telling you to join a gym or eat more vegetables for example, because that's more about general health. Whereas diet pills are at the worst extreme of the "Panic! panic! Get thin or else!" end of the diet industry scale.

But either way, the message is "hide yourself in shame unless you look like this".

On a positive note I'm really happy that thanks to Twitter, MN and all the feminist blogs etc., things like this get picked up and cause a huge debate every time. That is the best possible way for more and more people to become aware of how sexism affects things and gets promoted all the time.

I don't think its good the. Having the debate is. But it's actually getting a bit ridiculous. Have you actually read the petition?

The petition is clearly body shaming and has a problem that she may or may not be tanned. It doesn't come across very well, especially since they have fought back with a more acceptable (by their standards) version, which is larger models. Cause that's ok, but a lean girl is not. Even though she and plenty of other girls look like that.

People defacing posters and tweeting abuse, body shaming a model and making up secret messages that the poster is conveying doesn't make an impressive argument.

Totally agree, I have no time for attacking a woman who is shaped like that, or attacking anyone for being thin. I'm not signing that petition.

Nobody is attacking her for being thin. RTFT.

Maybe not on the thread, but elsewhere.

Am I reading a different petition? What part is body shaming?

Actually a few people have commented on her being thin. Stick insect was one of the terms on here and social media (which I was referring to in my last post).

I did read the thread thanks

And as Amethyst has said, no-one is attacking her for being thin. They are attacking the fact that "white, thin, drop-dead gorgeous, long flowing locks" is the beauty standard to be attained. Again. In this case it is described as the "beach body".

It is a narrow definition of attractiveness and adds to the myriad of messages that women receive everyday about how their worth is tied up in the way they look.

I think it is unfortunate in some ways that so much attention is being focused on this particular advert, as it is very far from alone in its message but as one PP put it - they have gone for it HARD and as a result it is, imo the straw that broke the camel's back and this is the backlash that has been building up for some time.

The message that there is literally a very narrow body type that we should all aspire to achieve (when it is only actually achievable by a very small proportion of people who are blessed with the prerequisite resources and incredible genes) is ubiquitous, selling us pretty much anything. It has been around for a long time yes, but seems to be getting louder and louder and, thanks to cosmetic surgery and photoshop, even more 'perfect' and unattainable in recent times. It does not equate to fitness or health - it is essentially saying that this is how you must look to be attractive and happy. That this is principally what you are judged on - not on what you can do or what you have to say, or how kind you are. How can that be a great message to give to our kids? And to those of you saying that it's good to have something to aspire to - there's a difference in having images that are realistic to aspire to and those that eventually make people feel like failures because they don't and can't measure up. If being bombarded by such images worked in terms of making people fitter and healthier then surely there wouldn't be a problem with obesity? Why can't we see a range of people with different body shapes looking healthy and happy and attractive? the answer of course is that then we might just begin to think we are ok as we are and don't need to buy the things that will make us better

To those saying that we have a bigger problem with obesity than eating disorders, so it's better to promote this 'healthy' image to try and address that...apart from my point above that this strategy clearly isn't working, eating disorders don't only come in the form of anorexia; bulimia and binge eating disorder very often result in obesity and there will be many more people - often undiagnosed and untreated - with these than anorexia but of course aren't as easily identifiable as sufferers. Yet those are the ones who no doubt started off with perfectly healthy, reasonable weights but decided to aim for 'perfection' by dieting from an early age. The dieting industry has played a role in the 'obesity epidemic' as much as advertising and media such as this and the food industry generally - and this ad has a foot in at least two of those camps.

There have been no comments on here about her being a stick insect. In fact that was a derogatory remark made about other women from a poster who agrees with you shewept.

Scallop calling her body unrealistic? With the added *for most people to achieve, everyone has their own body shape.

Her body isn't realistic? So we shouldn't let a model show her body because most people don't look like that? Can a lean model with more mainstream proportions model?

Maybe we should measure every women's bones so models with average bones structure, and there fore more achievable proportions are the only ones allowed.

Here is another one 'she would be pretty.....If she smiled'

No, it's unrealistic for most people to be able to achieve any one particular body shape. In this case, as is so often the case, that's the ultra-slim, yet shapely, big-boobed look. In fact that is so unrealistic that many women who have it can't achieve it other than by having breast implants, and many of the women you see in photos also haven't achieved it – they are photoshopped.

Some women may have it naturally of course. It's just that presenting that one, single image as what everyone should hope to look like, and feel like a failure if they don't, is unrealistic. And that matters because keeping a lot of people hankering after an unrealistic goal leads to misery, as well as encouraging people to be less accepting of their own and others' varied shapes. As well as taking desperate people's money.

Or the cries of 'silicone book's and ' she is Photoshopped....no one looks like that!'

Except she does!

I think the point is very people do, or could look like that.

Just because she does, she shouldn't be held up as what everyone else should want to look like and feel bad if they don't. I think it's possible to make that stand without any attack on her body or her personally.

very few sorry

Shewept, I made the point that very few women with such slight frames and so little body fat have large breasts without having had surgical enhancement. That's true. I also made the point that the image has been photoshopped, because all images used in advertising are. That's true too. What's your problem with it?

It's not an attack on her, it's at attack on unrealistic images being presented as the only acceptable way to look, which you can achieve if you buy some protein shakes, which is a lie.

It's very possible she hadn't had breast enhancement surgery btw - perhaps she just has a very unusual figure, or has some serious chicken fillets in her bikini top. I don't know. The point is that her shape is not achievable for 99% of women.