Four months after giving birth to her daughter Jessica has
recently announced that she has lost more than 40 pounds of baby weight and has
become the new spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. While I am very happy for
Jessica for taking control of her life through her weight loss, this dramatic
weight loss creates an unrealistic portrayal of female body and motherhood. In
addition to all the other ads women are exposed to on a daily basis now we have
an advertisement preaching that to be a “better version of [your]self” for your
children you need to be skinny.
I found
this particularly evident in her new Weight Watchers commercial in which she stares
directly into the camera and says:
"I'm Jessica Simpson
and yes, I'm doing Weight Watchers. There is a lot of pressure to lose weight but I'm not a supermodel. I'm just Jessica
trying to eat real food in the real world and I really just wanna be healthy
for my daughter. So I knew Weight Watchers was the only way to go. It's
working. I'm on my way and it feels amazing. Really I just wanna be a better
version of myself."
Hate to break it to Jessica but you are only adding to the
pressures by being a part of this campaign. You are showing your daughter that there
is something fundamentally wrong with gaining a couple extra pounds. That if your
daughter was to ever gain weight, “Weight Watchers is the only way to go”. This
is probably not the message you were intending however that is how it comes
off.
Being
healthy is one thing, however being healthy is not correlated with being
skinny. I know many “larger” individuals who are perfectly healthy and extremely
fit. At the same time I know many individuals who are skinny and suffer from
hidden health ailments. Your size does not determine your health, however we
have come to consider one with the other.
More
importantly one’s size or health does NOT, determine one’s ability to be a “better”
parent. I honestly was not aware that there was a standardized until of
measurement by which we measure one’s parental abilities. Furthermore I didn’t
know that one’s size was one of the criteria of measurement (*please note the sarcasm).
Being a parent should be measured by one’s care, compassion and investment into
the well-being of their children. None of these factors are determined by one’s
size!
Another
interesting fact is that during the commercial you never see the progress of
your weight loss, you only see Jessica’s face talking directly to you. She is
talking to the viewer in a parental tone, that is supportive however at the
same time holds direct motives, that if you are overweight your only option is
to join Weight Watchers. While I applaud Jessica for losing the weight, her new
campaign with Weight Watchers establishes an unrealistic expectation that to be
the “best” mother is to be skinny.
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