Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Results not typical

You know, when you are watching television and that Slimfast ad pops up with all those curvaceous women jumping around with those stupid happy grins on their faces, celebrating the fact that their bodies are no longer as prone to gravity as they used to be 4 weeks ago, or 2 weeks ago, or even 1 week ago in some cases, before you say to yourself, fuck, I wanna be as thin as those women and wear tight fitting jeans that look tasteful without being obscene in order to show off my newly visible curves, just hold on for one goddamn minute. For one, you are a man, so quit acting gay. Unless you are in fact gay, of course. And secondly, stop watching those women for a while and check out the bottom part of the screen. If you are quick, you'll see the phrase "Results not typical" flit by.

So when they are telling us that this woman lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks and while you are busy watching the jumping and the oscillating, they also quickly let you know that these women are an aberration, and that the probability of you losing the same weight in the same period of time is as high as you coming across a half-eaten muffin lying on the road and not devouring it. Which is close to zero, since you are a fat bastard who will eat everything he sees.

But my question to Slimfast is, why in the name of Rosie O'Donell are you showing me women who've had non-typical results? In order for me to make an educated decision, shouldn't you show someone in the ad who has had a realistic sheddage of pounds, not someone who got thin through some voodoo black magic not available to the layperson?

Boy, there's just no honesty left in the advertizing industry.

4 comments:

Kupa Manduka said...

how about the jared guy for subway? they seem to be holding on to him for some years now ... would that qualify as typical?

Anonymous said...

Even more deceptive is the Kellog's super K or something that claims you can lose 6lbs in two weeks by eating their cornflakes. My interest piqued, I looked up this box at the grocery store - apparently, you have to forgo two meals a day and replace them with one cup only of this wonder cereal and lo and behold you may lose upto 6 lbs !!
Whats the friggin' difference between that and dieting by eating less ? Oh I know - filling the coffers of the Kellog Co.

As for the Jared guy, they usually run the disclaimer that he used to eat only two subs a day and actually excersize daily to achieve the weigt loss.

Btw, have you noticed how those Subway subs (at least ones in the US) look really big and filling on TV, but when you land up at the store, they become so tiny !

Yeah - where's the honesty ?

gawker said...

Actually I like Jared. See, at least nowadays he doesn't go around telling people he got thin 'cause of Subway. All he does is just go around saying Subways are delicious sandwiches with less fat.

Then there's a cereal that says eating it "might" lower your cholesterol. With the disclaimer that to lower your cholesterol, diet and exercize is necessary. It's all just bullshit, to be honest.

Fitness Insights said...

I like Jared too. I am glad he dropped some poundage, but to be honest if subway was the answer there would be people lining around the block. 'Results not typical' is truly the loophole that allows people to get away with anything in these infomercials. Great post, I am going to link this one to my blog so others can see the wisdom from you guys

Jamie Atlas
http://jamieatlas.wordpress.com