Promoting Advertisement: Thin Is In

You are with a group of people watching TV. A commercial comes up for a fast food restaurant, there is a skinny women holding a big burger, which is sure to get the guys attention. Another commercial comes on with a thin toned girl promoting a diet that she has used, this is sure to get the girls attention in the group.  Today women are commonly used in the advertisement to sell different kinds of foods to both genders. Advertisers use women’s body images to promote food products.

          Today this world is filled with advertisements for a wide variety of products. Women are often seen in many commercials, on billboards, and throughout magazines for food advertisements. What better way to get a males attention than with a female? Many commercials are seen with women holding food items filled with meat such as burgers or sandwiches. According to Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra Merskin in their essay “Having it His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising,” they found when watching television advertisements that were directed more towards men they found that in the advertisements in order to appeal to the men (461), “men had the lead parts and did most of the talking, women were used primarily as objects of the male gaze, men hung out with other men and outnumbered women, and/or the narrator mentioned men specifically” (461). I can’t remember the last time I have seen a commercial directed towards men that hasn’t had at least one of these aspects. Women are placed in these commercials simply to catch attention. Another example of this is beer commercials. Many commercials associated with beer have females holding or posing with beer. When in reality the beer and the women in the commercial really have no association with each other. But yet again how often do you see beer commercials without women present?

          Women are also used in advertisement to sell to other women. This is commonly seen in association with healthy foods such as salads. In commercials for fast food restaurants when salads are being promoted, it is often skinny women who are seen promoting them. Because of the women who are promoting this are skinny it often leads to making women also want to look like that again, grabbing their attention. According to Susie Orbach in “Fat Is a Femanist Issue,” I found a quote talking about women and self-image. It notes, “She attempts to make herself in the image of womanhood presented by billboards, newspapers, magazines, and television. The media present women either in a sexual context or within the family, reflecting a woman’s two prescribed roles, first a sex object, and then as a mother” (450). I couldn’t agree with this quote more and think it points out the role how women are used in advertising. Women are either seen as a sex object or a mother role and advertising thrives off of that to sell products.

          Another way advertisers use women to sell to other women is through diets. With the idea of self-image, women are always looking to be thinner and one way of doing that is diets. Orbach notes, “Since women are taught to see themselves from the outside as candidates for men, they become prey to the huge fashion and diet industries that first set up the ideal images and then exhort women to meet them” (451). Advertisers use this to their advantage as much as possible. When watching television commercials, skinny toned women are often seen promoting diets that they have used. This catches the attention of women and helps the advertisers to sell products.  In "Food Advertising And Eating Disorders: Marketing Body Dissatisfaction, The Drive For Thinness, And Dieting In Women's Magazines" By Nona Wilson and Anne E. Blackhurst they note that, “One of the primary roles for women in food advertisements is to lament some aspect of their appearance” (“Body Dissatisfaction” para. 2). You see this is all types of advertisements. Seeing woman who are skinny, toned, and thin, personally I can’t help but feel like I need to look that way and if I don’t that I am not considered beautiful or even attractive. These advertisements make me think that I need to diet and even make me consider trying that exact one. Diets are largely promoted in advertising especially featured in magazines.   

          Magazines are often used when fast food companies come out with new products, selling different types of drinks, and are also used to promote diets.  If you flip through a magazine intended for males, it is almost always filled with women. Women in images promoting food and also beer in all different kinds of outfits. This once again, easily catches males attention. Orbach also claims, “Every women’s magazine has a diet column” (448). Who is seen promoting this diet? Yet again, skinny toned women claiming that this certain diet helped them to look this way.

          No matter what type of advertisement is used to promote and sell different kinds of food, women are almost always present in these advertisements. Women’s body images are used to sell to both males and females. Advertisers feed off of all the different ways to grab attention of both gender and the crazy thing is in today’s society, it works.

Works Cited

Freeman, Carrie Packwood, and Debra Merskin. “Having It His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising.” Graff, Birkenstein, and Durst 454-79. Print.

Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. “They Say/ I say” : The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. 2^nd ed. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.

Orbach, Susie. “Fat Is a Feminist Issue.” Graff, Birkenstein, and Durst 448-53. Print.

Wilson, Nona L., and Anne E. Blackhurst. “Food Advertising And Eating Disorders: Marketing Body Dissatisfaction, The Drive For Thinness, And Dieting In Women's Magazines.” Journal Of Humanistic Counseling, Education & Development 38.2 (1999): 111-22. EBSCO MegaFILE. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.