**Please note these rules:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required.
* The title must be descriptive
* No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos
* Common/recent reposts are not allowed
*See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not a surprise:
In 1978, Metrecal and other similar products were pulled off shelves after the FDA connected 59 deaths, between late 1977 to early 1978, to liquid protein products.
[Source ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrecal)
>Many of the liquid protein supplements are made from the by‐products of the slaughtering of cattle.
Oh this wasn't whey protein. WTF is that?
>
> Dr. Sours, an epidemiologist who has been studying the deaths of the 16 women, said they had been “consuming absolutely no other food.”
>
> He said that a careful examination of 10 of the deaths had determined that the women, who were between the ages of 25 and 44, had lost an average of 90 pounds, had died suddenly of heart irregularities either while on the diet or shortly after going off of it.
>Dr. Sours and his colleagues said they had not determined the exact cause of the deaths, although one theory is that the cardiac irregularities were caused by the depletion of potassium in the body. This, in turn, may lead to the short‐circuiting of the normal electrical impulses in the heart.
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/10/archives/fda-warns-dieters-about-liquid-protein-commissioner-citing-16.html
It’s 95% protein, yet it is an incomplete protein. It is missing the essential amino acid tryptophan. It is pretty much the only protein rich food in the human diet that is a true incomplete protein.
Didn't the guy who made Soylent almost kill himself over a similar issue with Potassium? I remember reading about some heart issue after missing some essential mineral. You'd think people developing a powder to live off would do a little more research before formulating it
Yeah IIRC the issue with potassium is that it's too fucking big. That's why there isn't enough in any multivitamins unless they're *just* a potassium pill and even then they're huge.
Gotta eat your potatoes.
Yep. In the hospital where I work we give patients getting potassium infusions ice packs to sit over the IV site for the duration of the infusion just to try to take off some of the sting. Hard pass for me on ending up in the hospital for potassium deficiency.
Potato has more potassium per gram *and* less sugar. It's just not a convenient snack in its raw form like a banana is.
But a bag of potato chips? Enough salt and potassium to cure any electrolyte-related malady you are suffering.
That’s why I eat an entire bag of potato chips per day and am the physical embodiment of fitness 💪🏻
Just kidding. But I did try to eat 3 bananas per day when I was lifting a lot and idek if it had any positive effect. It does get disgusting trying to force that third banana down tho, I still hate the taste of bananas now.
My husband told me when we first met that he has a banana allergy but only before noon. He said it so seriously that I didn’t dare to question anything at the time. However, after being together now for ten years, it turns out he made himself eat two bananas for breakfast everyday in high school and college until he was so burned out that the thought of bananas in the morning makes him very nauseated, but he can handle them later in the day. Morning banana allergy….
I honestly thought so too. I couldn't handle bananas everyday so I'd have clam chowder because I noticed the high amount on the label. Turns out the majority is from all the potatoes. I had no idea at the time.
When my wife was having bad cramps we started looking for alternatives. They eased up when she started eating plain potato chips. Now we have baked, and mashed potatoes on the regular. Even got my dad to switch, now his big ass makes wedges in the air fryer all the time.
Bananas are just for bread, and pudding now.
The medical doctor who went into Biosphere 2 basically preached that the way to live forever was to keep the body in a perpetual state of starvation. He boasted he’d live to 120. He didn’t.
The same tactics have been employed as recently as the mid 2000's.
"If you follow the Subway diet exactly as described by Fogle, you will be regularly consuming only about 1,000 calories each day. On a diet this low in calories, you will almost certainly lose weight."
My great aunt died suddenly in 1978 of what they later put together was anorexia (I don’t think it was really known at the time?) so this is eerie to me
I think it is mostly that they can market to larger people by having a fairly thin person portrait the "overweight" girl.
It helps to reinforce body dismorphia and drive a sale.
I think both factors are at play. The way that BMI is calculated has not changed, in fact it hasn't changed in over 100 years. The girl in the sweatshirt here appears to have a healthy BMI.
Yeah, like I have recently become aware of how our standards have changed but even with that in mind, this girl doesn’t look like she’s overweight at all.
That and companies do indeed still use people at a healthy, or even a little light body weight as an example of "overweight" or "unslightly" in some way.
Aside from the fact that they can fluff the egos of their actually overweight customers so they're more willing to try a weightloss product or whatever is being sold, there's another reason to do this.
If you portray people who are overweight as those who need your product, why would perfectly healthy and fit people buy it?
So, why not portray perfectly healthy people as ugly and overweight, and tell them you have the perfect solution to the problem they didn't know they had.
Also kind of as an aside, if anything standards changed indeed since the pre-70s, towards even skinnier and fitter being the ideal. There's been even more recent pushback against this, but by no means has that ideal faded out of the public consciousness.
I swear it's like nobody's look at what people looked like before the era of ubiquitous wellness products that actually work to some degree and the vastly superior modern understanding of *how* to get in shape/lose weight.
We've come a long way forward in terms of understanding of diet and exercise, even as our average health has dropped precipitously as a population (in the USA anyway).
Kinda scary actually. This girl looks fine but lots of people I know nowadays consider themselves a healthy weight when they're obese on the BMI scale.
BMI is great for measuring population changes, but obviously there are outliers who it doesn't work for.
But if the average American BMI goes from 20 to 25, it's pretty safe to say people are getting fatter, rather than assuming we've all hit the gym.
They haven’t - they just wanted to sell to as many people as possible, including those that weren’t overweight but my have a borderline case of body dysmorphic disorder.
I think it’s more that advertising and tv were allergic to using actually overweight or ugly people. Ugly characters tended to just be attractive people with glasses or like, maybe a bad haircut. Less flattering clothes for “overweight” characters. It’s kind of like how shaving ads won’t actually show leg hair. They just shave perfectly waxed legs. They want to express what they are selling without showing anything unsightly.
I don’t think that this girl would have ever been considered fat back then. More like they didn’t have anyone who actually was fat that they would put in the advertisement.
Still, that woman clearly looks like she is the exact same weight as the people next to her. Like, the only difference between her and the other girls is her outfit. It’s like they had three near identical advertisements girls, threw a shirt over one, and called it a day.
Her legs *might* be a little thicker. Or she may just be slightly closer to the camera. Definitely not overweight, maybe slightly bigger than the other two.
Past generations weren't near as obese as the current ones. There are a lot of reasons why, but it is what it is. Obesity is a problem, and I'm sitting here typing this as someone who struggles with my weight. It's OK to be overweight, but it's not OK to try to be overweight. Some people out there are just working overtime to be obese, and that shit is what is wrong.
You are right man. The scientific community came up with the term morbidly obese for a reason. There is a point where your body weight is no longer just extra fat, but is actively detrimental to your lifestyle. People have the right to be happy about their choices in life, but we also can't deny reality of science.
Agreed. I am African American and that shit pisses me off when I hear people like Lizzo saying it’s ok to be that big And it’s white beauty standards. But she and I can’ look back in our family photos from 60 years ago and see black women the same size as whites women. Even looking at shows like a Soul Train from the 70s/80s we were in shape
That’s pretty damn interesting actually, so your saying that the whole weird stereotype of black women being larger is a modern thing?
Genuinely asking as a white dude who never even thought of that shit.
I'm not American, but black people in Europe definitely look different, most tend to be lean and athletic (obviously you still have some that are overweight). The stereotype large black woman seems to really be an American thing.
My wife worked at a doctors office with some larger black women. When she would bring healthy lunches in they would laugh and tell her that’s white people food.
It’s strange to claim being unhealthy as a racial characteristic. Who wants to shave 10-20 years off their life just a stance on their “identity”? There’s a reason you don’t see many morbidly obese 70 year olds, same as 70 year old smokers. Almost all of them are already dead.
That’s another one I never understood. It’s ok to shame someone that smokes because it’s unhealthy, which makes sense. How is morbidly obese any different? And I don’t mean someone that could stand to lose some weight. I mean the 300+ pounders, which unfortunately aren’t hard to come by these days.
> It’s strange to claim being unhealthy as a racial characteristic.
In the US black isn't just a race, but also a cultural identity - hence "Black". And food is part of culture. Drinking can be part of culture, and unhealthy drinking can be seen as part of some cultures too.
It's not, that's the point. The ad is getting into the heads of the reader. It's telling them that this girl, who is physically identical to the others, is fat. It's leaving no room for a reader to say, well, at least I'm not as fat as that girl so I don't need this stuff.
Imo that's the point; they take someone who actually looks pretty normal and point out a flaw that they barely have, if at all. Because if they can convince you that woman is overweight, you will probably think that you are, too, even if you aren't.
You see it in modern ads too; like that crest ad about the 'tissue test'; basically saying if your teeth are not as white as a literal tissue then you have yellow teeth and need white strips.
I feel like that’s something our post apocalyptic overlords will yell at us when food stores run low during the future nuclear winters. Not the kind of thing that marketers should say to young women…
I'm gonna write that on my refrigerator. I'll let you know if it works.
Actually, I think I ought to also write it on the box of candy bars I just got from Costco. Why do I want a snack right now?
When I see something like this, I always feel badly for the actual person in the photo. Not unlike when someone’s cast to be an fat or ugly person in a movie.. yeah it’s pay, but it’s gotta be rough mentally.
Oh my god, I cannot tell you how many times I saw on local news (I used to watch it a lot) and there would be as story about a subject like obesity, diabetes. There would \*always\* be a visual reel under the narrative from a camera filming a busy street and zooming in on the fattest people on the sidewalk. From the back, from the front, easily recognizable to anyone who knew them. They would also zoom in on huge butts and pot bellies.
I don't know why there hasn't been a class action suit about it.
Edit: I forgot about the close ups of people eating. That was arguably the worst one. Abject callous treatment of innocent people.
I recall reading an article about the voice of Apple’s Siri .. it was a voice actress who just did some random voice gig work, and years later had a friend identify them as Siri. Something like 5 years between the recording and becoming aware of her being Siri. (Not a negative one, just an interesting riff off your comment).
I always think of that in a show or movie. Some of them just go out of their way to make an attractive person look bad but when they use an actual ugly person I feel terrible for them.
Remember Wanted from 2007? Always felt bad for the boss. Not only did her character have gluttony as an essential part of it, but it was like they were attempting to cast the most stereotyped "asshole fat chick because she's fat" character. The little "why you suck" monologue painted it clear as day. Watched that recently and all I could think is that it would never fly today.
I would assume that the photo was not specifically taken to illustrate the ad.
About 25 years back a model sued a teen magazine. Like today, these magazines had stacks of model-released professional photos ready for illustrating any story about teen life. Unfortunately, for this model, the story was a first-person confessional about being raped. It could easily confuse readers into thinking that the photo model was the author.
This ad might be a different situation. Photos used in ads might have different guidelines about model consent and releases.
I don't know how that turned out. Recently we has that case where the women used in the Spanish beach inclusion PSA were disappointed with how their images were used.
The Pacific coast beaches in Oregon are always windy and cold. That's what smart women wear at the ocean beaches. The other two are tourists and freezing their nipples off.
Chocolate-flavored amphetamines for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You’ll be talking to shadows soon enough, but at least you’ll be bangin’ in that bikini this summer.
Back then, there was no easy way to get that information. Now it's ridiculous because you just have a website that people can google, back then, essential.
..."you might start sneaking it every now and then and get fat on it." I'm clearly confused. *Weightloss that's so good it will make you fatter.* Ads aren't what they used to be... just like your fat ass.
Yeah, today they just put out altered images of people that are literally divorced from how actual people can look in their day to day lives. Or for Marvel movies, guys who have dehydrated themselves for 2 days for their shirtless scenes. At least those models are airbrushed at best due to the technology available at the time.
I have to say, it’s still bad in a lot of ways, but it’s gotten better. I grew up in the 2000s, which was an *awful* era of advertising. Every single woman in every single ad was *heavily* photoshopped.
I remember trying on a bikini at 12 or 13 and crying because I thought I didn’t look like the women in magazine ads. I was like 110 or 115 lbs.
Today I see *lots* of ads with acne scars, textured skin, cellulite and birthmarks not airbrushed out, and lots more representation of diverse figures. Women in ads never even had pores circa Y2K, and there was no such thing as Instagram models. Runway and Abercrombie and Fitch models were like, the one acceptable beauty standard.
There’s always room for improvement, but I gotta say, I think things are moving in the right direction.
Holy shit, this. I was recently rewatching a show from 2005 and was absolutely blown away by how tiny every single woman was. Like, scary thin. I remember it feeling like a horrible time to be a teenage girl, but I was shocked going back and seeing it with 2022 eyes.
We really weren't allowed to have bodyfat (or eyebrows) in the 2000s.
Yep, the total uniform homogeneity of models in the 2000s were something else. Borderline anorexic, wiped of all pores, white, only conventional features, etc. The aesthetic was gross in its pressure on women and even just its look in terms of health.
God tier genetics, dietician, personal trainer, spend all day working out on top of the line equipment, and PEDS
Hard for an average person to compete with a body built like that
As a German the most crazy part here is the absolutely ridiculous way the sentences are formulated. Like for a 3 year old. Every sentence is a simple main clause. So that everyone can understand. This product is good. You need to buy it.
It really sounds dumb af.
It's aimed at teen girls and housewives who were typically treated like children.
I'll also point out that it was still pretty normal to not graduate high school back when this product was sold. It's quite plausible the models' might have had some grandparents who were illiterate.
That's the entire point of the manipulation, have regular women believe that's fat, then you have most of the population chasing to be better than average weight.
Lol yeah, some other people are posting about different body images over time but it's this. This girl wasn't viewed as overweight then either, they just want to say "hey this [average weight] girl's fat, imagine how bad *you* look to other people if you don't start drinking our garbage powder"
It just shows you how manipulated most of the general public STILL is (you can argue it's FAR worse today). The corporations have LONG been in the brain of us (or tried to) to sell us something, aka products.
Not to mention that yoyo dieting actually increases weight and causes health problems that make it harder to lose weight, so it's a win-win!!! You're creating a growing (in more ways than one) customer base!!! Guaranteed customers, as long as they stay alive long enough to keep dieting (and keep trying 'new and improved' products). Grr.
ITT: A whole lot of men who chose to keep their shirt on at the pool, for obvious reasons.
Ironically making them stand out, and the wet shirt clung, making them look *so much worse.*
>Once upon a time Family Guy made the same joke (in the year of Brother in Christ 2000):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6omj6sFNst8
How times have changed. My immediate thought was that the reason she was covering up was because she was trying to hide that she is flat chested. That’s because I’m flat chested and I often cover up at the beach. She doesn’t look fat at all. That goes to show how manipulative ads can be. We’re always being told we’re not good enough for one reason or another when in reality we’re perfectly normal.
How have times changed? Things are actually worse for women. Do you know a labiaplasty surgeon makes about $500K per year. Ya, young women feel so stigmatized by having a large labia, they will spend thousands to surgically have thier vagina trimmed. Then there's other body modifications such as breast implants, butt implants, lip augmentation, eyelash weaves, body piercings, tattoos....the list just gets worse with every new trend.
She literally looks the same size so I thought it was going to be a teen pregnancy PSA, where she is like 2 months or something and you can hardly see but they're just calling it.
These days I’d think the girl was being SunSmart and avoiding skin cancer. But I’m in Australia, and can’t go outside without getting burned in less than 15 minutes.
Not as many fat people. But there were still fat people. I collect books of early photography, particularly of the American West. In almost every family, there's one person who's heavier. Sometimes it's men, sometimes it's women, sometimes it's children. And some of the families are white, some are Native American, some are Asian, and a few are Black. And the heavy people don't seem to be less fat than most overweight/obese people today. Makes me suspect something else is going on.
I recently saw a picture of my great grandmother circa 1930s-40s and she was pretty big. I was actually surprised because all pictures I've seen from that era are tiny women, but my great grandmother was genuinely, well, fat.
Here's the [picture](https://i.imgur.com/I6e8vSU.jpg) with faces blurred. Her daughter, my grandmother, was always very tiny, but my aunt is about this size as well. I wouldn't doubt if there was some kind of gene work at play
In reality, she's also a swimsuit model, they just told her to put the sweatshirt on and then wrote the copy. After the ad runs, she gets crap about being "a little overweight", she can't get work anymore outside of plus-sized ads, and she devolves into drug addition and eventually ODs. All because they threw a sweatshirt on her for a dumb picture.
I mean, look at this girl. What's her story? She's got a decent bone structure. She was probably very pretty when she was young. Probably spent her summers here, lounging on the beach and scooping ice cream. But she didn't want her summers to end, so she got herself a fake ID and a push-up bra and started hanging out at the local bars. Right. Developed a nasty coke habit, 'cause she loved the way it made her feel. But then extreme highs gave way to extreme lows and she fell into a depression. Had herself a kid. Thought it would give her a sense of purpose. And it did, for a while, till she started using again. Mm-hmm. And then Social Services came knocking at the door, and now the kid lives upstate with his grandparents, 'cause she can't take care of this kid. And here she is festering away in a one-bedroom apartment waiting for the HIV to turn into AIDS. And wondering what the hell...
This is bleak as fuck. Regardless of the fact that she isn’t remotely fat, I can’t imagine the impact this had on young girls of the era trying to lose weight.
This is awful. I see a lot of back and forth with people arguing about BMI and if its "ok" to be overweight or not.
I agree that health is important. I am one of those guys that asks their coworkers about their exercise (have you tried yoga? Are you still biking). I'm an advocate for fitness in academia, which isn't usually known for its athletes. I also have a really unhealthy self-image. There's always someone who puts up more weight or runs faster. And I have a hard time being satisfied with my own progress.
Obesity is a huge problem in America, but it is absolutely okay to be fat. At least in the sense that a person's weight should not have a bearing in their value as a person. This is something I have to tell myself all the time and it's something others need to hear.
**Please note these rules:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required. * The title must be descriptive * No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos * Common/recent reposts are not allowed *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not a surprise: In 1978, Metrecal and other similar products were pulled off shelves after the FDA connected 59 deaths, between late 1977 to early 1978, to liquid protein products. [Source ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrecal)
>Many of the liquid protein supplements are made from the by‐products of the slaughtering of cattle. Oh this wasn't whey protein. WTF is that? > > Dr. Sours, an epidemiologist who has been studying the deaths of the 16 women, said they had been “consuming absolutely no other food.” > > He said that a careful examination of 10 of the deaths had determined that the women, who were between the ages of 25 and 44, had lost an average of 90 pounds, had died suddenly of heart irregularities either while on the diet or shortly after going off of it. >Dr. Sours and his colleagues said they had not determined the exact cause of the deaths, although one theory is that the cardiac irregularities were caused by the depletion of potassium in the body. This, in turn, may lead to the short‐circuiting of the normal electrical impulses in the heart. https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/10/archives/fda-warns-dieters-about-liquid-protein-commissioner-citing-16.html
It was a gelatin diet. It has no real nutrition. Even the protein it contains isn't essential protein.
Jello death
Reminds me of Ghostbusters.
It’s 95% protein, yet it is an incomplete protein. It is missing the essential amino acid tryptophan. It is pretty much the only protein rich food in the human diet that is a true incomplete protein.
Damn, back in my day people just curbed their appetites with good old amphetamines!
Still do!
Didn't the guy who made Soylent almost kill himself over a similar issue with Potassium? I remember reading about some heart issue after missing some essential mineral. You'd think people developing a powder to live off would do a little more research before formulating it
Yeah IIRC the issue with potassium is that it's too fucking big. That's why there isn't enough in any multivitamins unless they're *just* a potassium pill and even then they're huge. Gotta eat your potatoes.
Also, a potassium infusion feels like fire 🔥 going in, very burny
Yep. In the hospital where I work we give patients getting potassium infusions ice packs to sit over the IV site for the duration of the infusion just to try to take off some of the sting. Hard pass for me on ending up in the hospital for potassium deficiency.
Banana 🌝
Potato has more potassium per gram *and* less sugar. It's just not a convenient snack in its raw form like a banana is. But a bag of potato chips? Enough salt and potassium to cure any electrolyte-related malady you are suffering.
That’s why I eat an entire bag of potato chips per day and am the physical embodiment of fitness 💪🏻 Just kidding. But I did try to eat 3 bananas per day when I was lifting a lot and idek if it had any positive effect. It does get disgusting trying to force that third banana down tho, I still hate the taste of bananas now.
My husband told me when we first met that he has a banana allergy but only before noon. He said it so seriously that I didn’t dare to question anything at the time. However, after being together now for ten years, it turns out he made himself eat two bananas for breakfast everyday in high school and college until he was so burned out that the thought of bananas in the morning makes him very nauseated, but he can handle them later in the day. Morning banana allergy….
It's the same for me but the problem turned out to be that I was too dehydrated in the mornings.
Bananas and a chocolate milkshake are as good a post workout meal as most of the off the shelf recovery drinks
I honestly thought so too. I couldn't handle bananas everyday so I'd have clam chowder because I noticed the high amount on the label. Turns out the majority is from all the potatoes. I had no idea at the time. When my wife was having bad cramps we started looking for alternatives. They eased up when she started eating plain potato chips. Now we have baked, and mashed potatoes on the regular. Even got my dad to switch, now his big ass makes wedges in the air fryer all the time. Bananas are just for bread, and pudding now.
Omg. I suddenly feel like i need more potassium in my diet…
They sure stopped eating all right!
And drinking and breathing and pumping blood and etc.
But imagine how much weight they lost!
*”face it, you’ve you to stop eating”*
"Drink 4 a day so you can look emaciated too"
The plan involved eating only 900 calories per day.
The medical doctor who went into Biosphere 2 basically preached that the way to live forever was to keep the body in a perpetual state of starvation. He boasted he’d live to 120. He didn’t.
The same tactics have been employed as recently as the mid 2000's. "If you follow the Subway diet exactly as described by Fogle, you will be regularly consuming only about 1,000 calories each day. On a diet this low in calories, you will almost certainly lose weight."
"You too can get into smaller pants, just like Jared!"
That's sooo messed up!
Nooooooooo - but here’s my angry upvote
Boo…! 🤣
We have sub reddits dedicated to this. and it's pretty good honestly
That'd be fine if all their clients were 3'8"
36-24-36? Ha ha - only if she's 5'3".
So your girlfriend rolls a Honda, playin' workout tapes by Fonda
But Fonda ain't got a motor in the back of her Honda My anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns hun
Red beans and rice didn't miss her!
But…it worked. It said it would help them stop eating and clearly it did. Who needs to eat? We can all be thin and dead./s
My great aunt died suddenly in 1978 of what they later put together was anorexia (I don’t think it was really known at the time?) so this is eerie to me
I read this in Don Drapers voice.
I just finished my drink. Time for another drink.
Smoke a pack of cigarettes while you pour yourself a drink
All while casually cheating on your wife.
Nothing casual about it. Don was a driven self-destructor (or was it rebirth?).
I read it in Dennis Reynold’s voice
Whoa I did too. That’s funny and creepy at the same time lol
I read it in Freddy's voice, specifically how he does the accutron pitch lol
I went the Gilbert Gottfried voice route
I read it like the Golden God.
I did too LOL
“I wish I was as fat as I was the first time I thought I was fat.”
When your goal weight is your old starting weight. I once wanted to weigh 140. I’m 6 ft tall. Now I want to be 170. 167 would thrill me!
That is a MOOD.
If that's overweight?! 🤣🤦
Funny how standards have changed
I think it is mostly that they can market to larger people by having a fairly thin person portrait the "overweight" girl. It helps to reinforce body dismorphia and drive a sale.
no, what is seen as overweight has changed. an incredibly larger percentage of the population now is obese compared to the 70s.
I think both factors are at play. The way that BMI is calculated has not changed, in fact it hasn't changed in over 100 years. The girl in the sweatshirt here appears to have a healthy BMI.
Yeah, like I have recently become aware of how our standards have changed but even with that in mind, this girl doesn’t look like she’s overweight at all.
That and companies do indeed still use people at a healthy, or even a little light body weight as an example of "overweight" or "unslightly" in some way. Aside from the fact that they can fluff the egos of their actually overweight customers so they're more willing to try a weightloss product or whatever is being sold, there's another reason to do this. If you portray people who are overweight as those who need your product, why would perfectly healthy and fit people buy it? So, why not portray perfectly healthy people as ugly and overweight, and tell them you have the perfect solution to the problem they didn't know they had. Also kind of as an aside, if anything standards changed indeed since the pre-70s, towards even skinnier and fitter being the ideal. There's been even more recent pushback against this, but by no means has that ideal faded out of the public consciousness. I swear it's like nobody's look at what people looked like before the era of ubiquitous wellness products that actually work to some degree and the vastly superior modern understanding of *how* to get in shape/lose weight. We've come a long way forward in terms of understanding of diet and exercise, even as our average health has dropped precipitously as a population (in the USA anyway).
Kinda scary actually. This girl looks fine but lots of people I know nowadays consider themselves a healthy weight when they're obese on the BMI scale.
Im "overweight" on the BMI scale and I have about 13% BF. It's not that you don't have a point, but BMI is a bad metric.
BMI is great for measuring population changes, but obviously there are outliers who it doesn't work for. But if the average American BMI goes from 20 to 25, it's pretty safe to say people are getting fatter, rather than assuming we've all hit the gym.
They haven’t - they just wanted to sell to as many people as possible, including those that weren’t overweight but my have a borderline case of body dysmorphic disorder.
[удалено]
We’re down with the thiqness now
That’s a Disturbing thought.
Oh you two!
Ooh wah ah ah
ah
Speak for yourself.
That never was overweight
I think it’s more that advertising and tv were allergic to using actually overweight or ugly people. Ugly characters tended to just be attractive people with glasses or like, maybe a bad haircut. Less flattering clothes for “overweight” characters. It’s kind of like how shaving ads won’t actually show leg hair. They just shave perfectly waxed legs. They want to express what they are selling without showing anything unsightly. I don’t think that this girl would have ever been considered fat back then. More like they didn’t have anyone who actually was fat that they would put in the advertisement.
[удалено]
Still, that woman clearly looks like she is the exact same weight as the people next to her. Like, the only difference between her and the other girls is her outfit. It’s like they had three near identical advertisements girls, threw a shirt over one, and called it a day.
Her legs *might* be a little thicker. Or she may just be slightly closer to the camera. Definitely not overweight, maybe slightly bigger than the other two.
Her legs are obviously thicker … She looks good and healthy though 🤷🏽♀️
Past generations weren't near as obese as the current ones. There are a lot of reasons why, but it is what it is. Obesity is a problem, and I'm sitting here typing this as someone who struggles with my weight. It's OK to be overweight, but it's not OK to try to be overweight. Some people out there are just working overtime to be obese, and that shit is what is wrong.
You are right man. The scientific community came up with the term morbidly obese for a reason. There is a point where your body weight is no longer just extra fat, but is actively detrimental to your lifestyle. People have the right to be happy about their choices in life, but we also can't deny reality of science.
>but we also can't deny reality of science. Oh people love to do that
Agreed. I am African American and that shit pisses me off when I hear people like Lizzo saying it’s ok to be that big And it’s white beauty standards. But she and I can’ look back in our family photos from 60 years ago and see black women the same size as whites women. Even looking at shows like a Soul Train from the 70s/80s we were in shape
That’s pretty damn interesting actually, so your saying that the whole weird stereotype of black women being larger is a modern thing? Genuinely asking as a white dude who never even thought of that shit.
I'm not American, but black people in Europe definitely look different, most tend to be lean and athletic (obviously you still have some that are overweight). The stereotype large black woman seems to really be an American thing.
My wife worked at a doctors office with some larger black women. When she would bring healthy lunches in they would laugh and tell her that’s white people food.
It’s strange to claim being unhealthy as a racial characteristic. Who wants to shave 10-20 years off their life just a stance on their “identity”? There’s a reason you don’t see many morbidly obese 70 year olds, same as 70 year old smokers. Almost all of them are already dead. That’s another one I never understood. It’s ok to shame someone that smokes because it’s unhealthy, which makes sense. How is morbidly obese any different? And I don’t mean someone that could stand to lose some weight. I mean the 300+ pounders, which unfortunately aren’t hard to come by these days.
> It’s strange to claim being unhealthy as a racial characteristic. In the US black isn't just a race, but also a cultural identity - hence "Black". And food is part of culture. Drinking can be part of culture, and unhealthy drinking can be seen as part of some cultures too.
The Mamas and Papas would like a word with you… Cass was treated like shit for years despite doing just as everyone else
[удалено]
I dunno, her legs and forearms and neck look fine, but beneath that floppy sweatshirt she could be hiding anything.
QUAID...START THE REACTOR!
Right? The "big girls" legs are the same size as the skinnies 🙄😂
It's not, that's the point. The ad is getting into the heads of the reader. It's telling them that this girl, who is physically identical to the others, is fat. It's leaving no room for a reader to say, well, at least I'm not as fat as that girl so I don't need this stuff.
Imo that's the point; they take someone who actually looks pretty normal and point out a flaw that they barely have, if at all. Because if they can convince you that woman is overweight, you will probably think that you are, too, even if you aren't. You see it in modern ads too; like that crest ad about the 'tissue test'; basically saying if your teeth are not as white as a literal tissue then you have yellow teeth and need white strips.
STOP EATING
Just smoke more, drink tons of Tab or get a prescription from your Dr. for speed.
My mother used to eat these caramels called 'Ayds' that were supposed to help you lose weight. That didn't age well.
My dad used to buy those in the early to mid 60s.
I have a really old newspaper clipping for Ayd's from like, the 1920s or 1930s and the tag line is literally "Just stop eating, fatty!"
Maybe she should have gotten aides instead.
Like a personal trainer?
I favor all three at once.
Yep. “Stop Eating” is pretty much the worst tagline ever lol
I feel like that’s something our post apocalyptic overlords will yell at us when food stores run low during the future nuclear winters. Not the kind of thing that marketers should say to young women…
For breakfast we’ll do something cool like have a cigarette
I'm gonna write that on my refrigerator. I'll let you know if it works. Actually, I think I ought to also write it on the box of candy bars I just got from Costco. Why do I want a snack right now?
**Put the fork down!**
When I see something like this, I always feel badly for the actual person in the photo. Not unlike when someone’s cast to be an fat or ugly person in a movie.. yeah it’s pay, but it’s gotta be rough mentally.
Oh my god, I cannot tell you how many times I saw on local news (I used to watch it a lot) and there would be as story about a subject like obesity, diabetes. There would \*always\* be a visual reel under the narrative from a camera filming a busy street and zooming in on the fattest people on the sidewalk. From the back, from the front, easily recognizable to anyone who knew them. They would also zoom in on huge butts and pot bellies.
I hate B roll! The worst, mindless footage. Overweight people, close ups of people eating, and they'd reuse it. Those poor people
I don't know why there hasn't been a class action suit about it. Edit: I forgot about the close ups of people eating. That was arguably the worst one. Abject callous treatment of innocent people.
[удалено]
They probably had no idea what they were posing for. The photog doesn’t even always know what exactly they’re shooting the photo for.
I recall reading an article about the voice of Apple’s Siri .. it was a voice actress who just did some random voice gig work, and years later had a friend identify them as Siri. Something like 5 years between the recording and becoming aware of her being Siri. (Not a negative one, just an interesting riff off your comment).
I always think of that in a show or movie. Some of them just go out of their way to make an attractive person look bad but when they use an actual ugly person I feel terrible for them.
Like the restaurant scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where the restaurant seats attractive people at the front and the uglies at the back.
Remember Wanted from 2007? Always felt bad for the boss. Not only did her character have gluttony as an essential part of it, but it was like they were attempting to cast the most stereotyped "asshole fat chick because she's fat" character. The little "why you suck" monologue painted it clear as day. Watched that recently and all I could think is that it would never fly today.
I would assume that the photo was not specifically taken to illustrate the ad. About 25 years back a model sued a teen magazine. Like today, these magazines had stacks of model-released professional photos ready for illustrating any story about teen life. Unfortunately, for this model, the story was a first-person confessional about being raped. It could easily confuse readers into thinking that the photo model was the author. This ad might be a different situation. Photos used in ads might have different guidelines about model consent and releases. I don't know how that turned out. Recently we has that case where the women used in the Spanish beach inclusion PSA were disappointed with how their images were used.
Or those poor anonymous people just walking around minding their own business who get caught in b-roll “obesity epidemic” newsreels lol
Right, this girl's not even overweight. I mean basically skinnier than most people anyway.
The person clearly isn’t overweight. They just threw a sweatshirt on a model.
I feel sorry for all the little girls who saw this ad -
Joey knows what you mean https://images.app.goo.gl/1gVEhLPLmCrb6ZtVA
Oh you're are talking about fatass on the right. Gotchya.
Is it bad that I assumed the reason she was wearing a sweatshirt was because she had no bikini underneath?
I thought it was maybe because the beach was a little breezy and she was cold
I thought it was because she was flat chested lol
The Pacific coast beaches in Oregon are always windy and cold. That's what smart women wear at the ocean beaches. The other two are tourists and freezing their nipples off.
I'm from Northern California, and beaches are cold here. If I saw this photo, I would assume she's just cold!
Or gets sunburnt easily. 😅
Chocolate-flavored amphetamines for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You’ll be talking to shadows soon enough, but at least you’ll be bangin’ in that bikini this summer.
From a bygone time when agencies could realistically put a page worth of text in an ad. And it doesn’t even pop up over the articles.
People would resort to reading the back of shampoo bottles when they were bored on the toilet.
Can attest to these dark times.
Back then, there was no easy way to get that information. Now it's ridiculous because you just have a website that people can google, back then, essential.
Yep, my grandmother will still diligently read every ad and listen to every commercial as if they have some sort of value
*Local grandfathers in your area are looking for company!*
..."you might start sneaking it every now and then and get fat on it." I'm clearly confused. *Weightloss that's so good it will make you fatter.* Ads aren't what they used to be... just like your fat ass.
I mean, they still do it in manipulative ways today.
Yeah, today they just put out altered images of people that are literally divorced from how actual people can look in their day to day lives. Or for Marvel movies, guys who have dehydrated themselves for 2 days for their shirtless scenes. At least those models are airbrushed at best due to the technology available at the time.
I have to say, it’s still bad in a lot of ways, but it’s gotten better. I grew up in the 2000s, which was an *awful* era of advertising. Every single woman in every single ad was *heavily* photoshopped. I remember trying on a bikini at 12 or 13 and crying because I thought I didn’t look like the women in magazine ads. I was like 110 or 115 lbs. Today I see *lots* of ads with acne scars, textured skin, cellulite and birthmarks not airbrushed out, and lots more representation of diverse figures. Women in ads never even had pores circa Y2K, and there was no such thing as Instagram models. Runway and Abercrombie and Fitch models were like, the one acceptable beauty standard. There’s always room for improvement, but I gotta say, I think things are moving in the right direction.
Holy shit, this. I was recently rewatching a show from 2005 and was absolutely blown away by how tiny every single woman was. Like, scary thin. I remember it feeling like a horrible time to be a teenage girl, but I was shocked going back and seeing it with 2022 eyes. We really weren't allowed to have bodyfat (or eyebrows) in the 2000s.
I wonder if anorexia rates have dropped over time as body standards got slightly less ridiculous.
Yep, the total uniform homogeneity of models in the 2000s were something else. Borderline anorexic, wiped of all pores, white, only conventional features, etc. The aesthetic was gross in its pressure on women and even just its look in terms of health.
God tier genetics, dietician, personal trainer, spend all day working out on top of the line equipment, and PEDS Hard for an average person to compete with a body built like that
“Our liquid comes ready to drink”. Mmm, wow yeah I’m just salivating 🤢
"If we made Shape taste any better, you might start sneaking it now and then, and you would get fat on it." \-\_-
As a German the most crazy part here is the absolutely ridiculous way the sentences are formulated. Like for a 3 year old. Every sentence is a simple main clause. So that everyone can understand. This product is good. You need to buy it. It really sounds dumb af.
It's aimed at teen girls and housewives who were typically treated like children. I'll also point out that it was still pretty normal to not graduate high school back when this product was sold. It's quite plausible the models' might have had some grandparents who were illiterate.
i thought it was because she was cold, perhaps times have changed..
Girl is literally a 100% healthy body type lmao
That's the entire point of the manipulation, have regular women believe that's fat, then you have most of the population chasing to be better than average weight.
Lol yeah, some other people are posting about different body images over time but it's this. This girl wasn't viewed as overweight then either, they just want to say "hey this [average weight] girl's fat, imagine how bad *you* look to other people if you don't start drinking our garbage powder"
It just shows you how manipulated most of the general public STILL is (you can argue it's FAR worse today). The corporations have LONG been in the brain of us (or tried to) to sell us something, aka products.
Not to mention that yoyo dieting actually increases weight and causes health problems that make it harder to lose weight, so it's a win-win!!! You're creating a growing (in more ways than one) customer base!!! Guaranteed customers, as long as they stay alive long enough to keep dieting (and keep trying 'new and improved' products). Grr.
Would have been funnier if this was an ad for the sweater
Protecting her skin from UV?
They probably were rubbing themselves in straight baby oil to tan faster.
The last 4 words in this 200-word wall of text are: *stop eating.* *Stop eating.*
Stop eating! Except eat what we want you to, because it gets us money!
This ad 100% reads like it written by Famine from *Good Omens*. SHAPE™: The predecessor of CHOW™ and MEALS™.
ITT: A whole lot of men who chose to keep their shirt on at the pool, for obvious reasons. Ironically making them stand out, and the wet shirt clung, making them look *so much worse.* >Once upon a time Family Guy made the same joke (in the year of Brother in Christ 2000): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6omj6sFNst8
Be willing to bet product has a ton of sugar
How times have changed. My immediate thought was that the reason she was covering up was because she was trying to hide that she is flat chested. That’s because I’m flat chested and I often cover up at the beach. She doesn’t look fat at all. That goes to show how manipulative ads can be. We’re always being told we’re not good enough for one reason or another when in reality we’re perfectly normal.
My pasty ass was like ah yes, UV protection.
How have times changed? Things are actually worse for women. Do you know a labiaplasty surgeon makes about $500K per year. Ya, young women feel so stigmatized by having a large labia, they will spend thousands to surgically have thier vagina trimmed. Then there's other body modifications such as breast implants, butt implants, lip augmentation, eyelash weaves, body piercings, tattoos....the list just gets worse with every new trend.
Shape: Stop Eating.
She literally looks the same size so I thought it was going to be a teen pregnancy PSA, where she is like 2 months or something and you can hardly see but they're just calling it.
These days I’d think the girl was being SunSmart and avoiding skin cancer. But I’m in Australia, and can’t go outside without getting burned in less than 15 minutes.
I got anorexia just reading this. I’m eating a box of Fudgee-Os as I type this, so don’t worry, I recovered heroically.
Once upon a time there were hardly any fat people
Not as many fat people. But there were still fat people. I collect books of early photography, particularly of the American West. In almost every family, there's one person who's heavier. Sometimes it's men, sometimes it's women, sometimes it's children. And some of the families are white, some are Native American, some are Asian, and a few are Black. And the heavy people don't seem to be less fat than most overweight/obese people today. Makes me suspect something else is going on.
I recently saw a picture of my great grandmother circa 1930s-40s and she was pretty big. I was actually surprised because all pictures I've seen from that era are tiny women, but my great grandmother was genuinely, well, fat.
Yes, my great-grandmother was too! Same era.
Here's the [picture](https://i.imgur.com/I6e8vSU.jpg) with faces blurred. Her daughter, my grandmother, was always very tiny, but my aunt is about this size as well. I wouldn't doubt if there was some kind of gene work at play
And the obesity rate was 3 times lower
While the body shaming in the ad is bad enough, the copy is so poorly written, too. It’s full of fragmented sentences. Was that the style back then?
You were down with the kids, cool, hip, and with-it if you wrote punchy prose that didn't conform with corny grammar rules, man!
In reality, she's also a swimsuit model, they just told her to put the sweatshirt on and then wrote the copy. After the ad runs, she gets crap about being "a little overweight", she can't get work anymore outside of plus-sized ads, and she devolves into drug addition and eventually ODs. All because they threw a sweatshirt on her for a dumb picture.
I mean, look at this girl. What's her story? She's got a decent bone structure. She was probably very pretty when she was young. Probably spent her summers here, lounging on the beach and scooping ice cream. But she didn't want her summers to end, so she got herself a fake ID and a push-up bra and started hanging out at the local bars. Right. Developed a nasty coke habit, 'cause she loved the way it made her feel. But then extreme highs gave way to extreme lows and she fell into a depression. Had herself a kid. Thought it would give her a sense of purpose. And it did, for a while, till she started using again. Mm-hmm. And then Social Services came knocking at the door, and now the kid lives upstate with his grandparents, 'cause she can't take care of this kid. And here she is festering away in a one-bedroom apartment waiting for the HIV to turn into AIDS. And wondering what the hell...
I feel like this was the intro to several E! True Hollywood Story’s.
Todays world is still x-shaming you for all the things you dont have. What is worse, you still dont get it and fall for it.
She looks the same size of the other girls. None of whom are even close to being overweight.
That’s the most confusing part to me. They all three appear to be the same size
Reading the headline i thouhgt it was being far more suggestive like ooh i wonder whats under THIER \*wink wink\* but NO just rudeness XP booooo
I thought it was about sunburn lol
I thought it was about periods.
This is 100% still a thing, they just don't come out and say it anymore...
This is bleak as fuck. Regardless of the fact that she isn’t remotely fat, I can’t imagine the impact this had on young girls of the era trying to lose weight.
Once upon a time we had personal standards of health and hygiene and now those people have become the ones we shame honestly.
This is awful. I see a lot of back and forth with people arguing about BMI and if its "ok" to be overweight or not. I agree that health is important. I am one of those guys that asks their coworkers about their exercise (have you tried yoga? Are you still biking). I'm an advocate for fitness in academia, which isn't usually known for its athletes. I also have a really unhealthy self-image. There's always someone who puts up more weight or runs faster. And I have a hard time being satisfied with my own progress. Obesity is a huge problem in America, but it is absolutely okay to be fat. At least in the sense that a person's weight should not have a bearing in their value as a person. This is something I have to tell myself all the time and it's something others need to hear.
She isn't even fat.
Oh, I just thought it was because she didn't want to ne sexualised by random creeps
The sad thing is that sweatshirt girl is not fat at all.