Do you feel fat? How about now?
Published by Sabotabby June 28th, 2007 in Celebrity, For the ladies, What Patriarchy?
Slim-Fast’s new celebrity spokesperson is tall, slender Rachel Hunter. She’s never tried the diet drink herself, but she’s darn tootin’ sure it’s a good thing: “I haven’t started taking Slim-Fast,” she says, “My message is more that I agree with what they’re saying.”*
Not that meal replacements are ever a good idea, but even Newsweek seems to find the “Find Your Slim” campaign a bit odd.
Press materials urge consumers to log onto iVillage.com to join Hunter and enter a 10-week “Find Your Slim” before-and-after photo-and-essay contest. Press materials say Hunter “will incorporate Slim-Fast into her life as an approach to reaching her personal weight-loss goal and will encourage consumers to do the same by setting a simple, doable weight-loss goal of between 10 and 20 pounds.” A Slim-Fast spokesman attempted to clarify, saying: “We do anticipate that Rachel will, when she needs to, use Slim-Fast.” But he added: “She is not obliged to use Slim-Fast. … It’s less about the product and more about the campaign.”
The campaign, of course, boils down to “you can be any weight you want—as long as it’s skinny.” It’s couched in the usual language of self-esteem and empowerment (”being an individual and being a woman and finding your weight”) and health (despite Hunter’s admission that she skips breakfast).
But the message is clear: Even tall, skinny celebrities need diets. (Though, as always, the male gaze must be one’s primary consideration; Hunter demurs that she gets “horsey” when she drops below 140 pounds, and it’s “not attractive.”) Just because you basically fit the American standard template of beauty—just because you might have made a career out of it—is no excuse to get complacent. You might gain a pound.
* Which is that she’s fat, apparently.
They had just a few months ago done some spots showing realistically-proportioned people using SlimFast! Which was both an improvement (over the message that even at 80 pounds, you’re still too fat!) and problematic (in that even the people in the commercial were not truly overweight in any health sense, which reinforces it’s not how you feel or how healthy you are, but all in how you look).
This… I just… yep, speechless.
How do you live in America and never try SlimFast or a SlimFast equivalent even once? Especially if you’re a model. I used to snork them down in high school, when a 7AM bus meant I was into breakfasts that could be tossed in the backpack at the last second. Granted, if you really want a decent meal-replacement shake, nothing beats chocolate Carnation Instant Breakfast in soy milk.
When I was a kid, that was doable. I could also survive for weeks at a time eating a lunch consisting only of peanut M&Ms and a poweraide. Today, I’m not sure I could replace one or more meals with 12 ounces of SlimFast without having a nervous breakdown. Women on those diets get real cranky, for obvious reasons.
I’ve never tried a SlimFast thing or anything like it. The closet I get, meal-replacement-wise, are energy bars. They’re even better for throwing into backpacks or purses, without the worry that they’re going to spill all over the place. And I genuinely like the taste of the crunchy organic ones.
And I genuinely like the taste of the crunchy organic ones.
There are crunchy energy bars? I only ever tried squishy awful ones.
Check out Luna and Clif. They’re by the same company. Not really great in terms of nutrition, compared to the squishy awful sort, but they taste awesome.
Well not growing up in the USA, and having your career primarily in Europe, would I guess be a first step. Of course, Rachel is famed for an IQ roughly the same as her shoe size, so minor gaffes like this are not unexpected.