Rant

At the deli last night while waiting for my sliced turkey breast, I noticed samples of Pretzel Crisps on the deli counter. Remember their ill-advised ad slogan “You can never be too thin”? Well. Snack Factory removed those ads by popular demand.

And replaced them with: “Tastes as good as skinny feels.”

So: they decided a good replacement for an ad criticized for promoting eating disorders was a play on the pro-anorexic slogan “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” – a motto frequently quoted on pro-ana websites. I have a hard time believing this was an innocent coincidence.

Because, once again, they changed their ads in response to public backlash.

They changed them to: “We’re thin and stacked, so lose the old bag.”

Thanks a lot.

Hence the reason when I saw Pretzel Crisps samples at the deli last night, I walked away. I’m not averse to samples; I love them, in fact. But I am so sick of constantly being confronted with the Impossible Ideal, everywhere. Snack Factory is one example of the hateful irony: using eating disorder mentality to sell me…food.

The media is rife with the paradoxical message that while we must eat and indulge, we must, at the same time, be “thin and stacked.”

It’s painful, and it’s turning us into a nation of food shows, food magazines, and food blogs: we are becoming obsessed with what we can’t have, or are afraid to allow ourselves to have. This is a token symptom of anorexics. When I was sick, I pored over cookbooks and cooking magazines, lapping up the pictures. I planned dinner recipes and baked desserts (for others, not me). And that was comparatively tame behavior.

I believe that the more conflicting media messages play psychological tug-of-war with our minds, the more we lose the ability to eat normally. Subconsciously we know being Barbie is impossible, but if we can’t access our Normal Eater…it feels safer just to watch dessert on TV.

Thin people eschew cupcakes; they eat pretzels – thin pretzels. If you eat that cupcake – well…it will be Bad. You should chew some Extra Dessert Delights gum instead (ah, the many ingenious ways we devise to prove to ourselves that we can have our cake and not eat it, too). You can always turn on Food Network and dream about those dense, golden confections topped with pillows of spring-pastel frostings.

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*I do understand that for some people, even one cupcake can be an enormous trigger, and I am not trying to minimize that struggle in my post. My point is merely to emphasize that our culture has lost a true understanding of moderation.

A Loaded Slogan

Initially I planned a long, lambasting blog entry castigating Snack Factory for its recent “You Can Never Be Too Skinny” Pretzel Crisps ad campaign in New York City. (The mastermind behind that clever slogan should probably go into hiding with the person who created Urban Outfitters’ “Eat Less” T-shirt.)

However, now that I sit down to write, I realize the Pretzel Crisps ads are so patently stupid – and did I mention, wrong? - that they preclude the need for additional finger-pointing (although I’m thankful to NYC The Blog for taking to the streets to declare the obvious truth that yes, you can be too skinny. And for that matter, so can pretzels.) 

Snack Factory announced it will “adjust” the ad campaign (read their full response on NYC The Blog linked above), and many bigger voices with the ability to reach a broader audience have already peppered the Internet with posts sarcastically deriding the ads and underscoring the seriousness of eating disorders. I do not need to repeat their points.

I sat down at my computer with every intention of doing so, but my anger dissipated when I realized: we asked for it. Author Peter Kreeft wrote in CS Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty that “man makes culture before culture makes man.” Culture does not generate spontaneously in a vacuum; a cursory glance at the magazine covers in any grocery store check-out line should tell you that Snack Factory was only attempting to parrot back to us our own beliefs. In theory, no one believes “you can never be too skinny.” But what about in practice?

To prove my point, let me share an ad from a 1960s comic book:

The Vitatone ad says, “Don’t be skinny – put on pounds and inches of new, attractive flesh!” Wow – I think even the healthiest of us wish we were skinnier, and most would automatically balk at the idea of pounds and inches being attractive. In 40 years America has managed to make a complete about-face and run wildly to embrace the skinny ideal.

I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks it’s time to turn around –  and change our cultural “slogans” while we’re at it.

Someone’s Brilliant Idea

Someone at Urban Outfitters had the brilliant idea to create a grey women’s v-neck top emblazoned with the words “Eat Less” on the front.

Hopefully that person is hiding under their bed now with the furniture piled against the door.

The shirt was quietly removed from Urban Outfitters’ website but can still be purchased in stores. Despite the controversy generated by the product, Urban Outfitters has remained silent, offering no comment to the enraged section of their consumer base.

Dear Urban Outfitters,

What were you thinking!?

(I am sitting in the Enraged Section wildly waving my hand-painted sign and my brown bag lunch.)

My brain is jabbing about wrathfully, attempting to hit upon anything resembling a reason for creating a women’s shirt with an “Eat Less” slogan.

Possible options:

1. Someone thinks it’s funny.

2. Someone thinks it will motivate people to…eat less.

3. Someone wants to propagate the idea that fat people are uncool and thin people are ultra-cool…or something.

I feel that I’m grasping at straws, but unfortunately, I also feel that the answer to my question is all of the above. Why does a company like Urban Outfitters market any product? In the firestorm surrounding the “Eat Less” shirt, the other slogan shirts by the company for teen girls - “Regrets: Let’s Make a Few” and “Alcohol Caffeine Nicotine” for example - have been ignored.

Companies cater to the public and reflect cultural trends. And vices (Urban Outfitters calls its “Alcohol” shirt the “Three Vices” tee) are trendy. Misguided products such as the “Eat Less” shirt not only reflect but also reinforce the standard of thinness as beauty among girls and women. Oh, by the way, did I mention the model wearing the shirt on the Urban Outfitters website decidedly does not need to eat less?

Let me now briefly explore possible messages the slogan might convey:

1. Look at me, I’m thin, I’m cool. You’re fat and uncool.

2. Look at me, I’m thin, I’m cool. You’re thin and cool, too, and we can stay that way by being unhealthy.

Or 3. Haha, this is funny…but only to pretentious jerks.

Do we have a weight problem in America? Absolutely. But eating less is not the way to handle it. Eating less of the wrong foods is one part of the answer. And on the other side of the same coin, eating disorders and disordered eating are also becoming out of control. (But where’s the Cool Market for a message shirt saying “Eat More?”)

To all those blog commenters who found the “Eat Less” shirt hilarious, and to Someone Brilliant at Urban Outfitters, I have this to say: by all means, let’s have fun with our “vices”, laugh at them, and market them to everyone. And let’s see how many regrets we end up making.