Special K - More than just a number

Television seems to be awash with adverts calling for body positivity and this is just one of them by Special K, making women feel better about jean sizes by replacing numbers with compliments in order to fit jeans. This would have been a beautiful social experiment boosting women's body positivity if if hadn't been created by the brand that has advertised using the tag line 'Drop a size in 2 weeks.'

This was a harmful campaign to women's body image insecurities and encouraged a very unhealthy weight loss programme of losing weight quickly by eating 2 bowls of cereal instead of 2 meals. However after years of playing on and making money from women feeling insecure about their bodies, they are now trying to make money about body positivity. It is this history that annoys me and I think the advert rings fake and overplayed. The women are reacting like it is some great revelation that their bodies are actually nice. Unsurprisingly none of the women in the advert could be over a size 12, but of course Special K wouldn't want to ruin the beautiful aesthetic of their advert would they? But because all the actresses are slim, it just seems so fake, of course everyone has insecurities no matter how skinny but I'm sure the result would not have been quite so empowering if a group of size 32 women had walked in. The most frustrating thing is that women are being manipulated and dictated about when they can hate their bodies and when they should like them. The tone of the advert angers me because Special K are trying to appear like they are helping women but are actually a huge part of the problem. It is annoying because the idea that you are more than a number is important and something that I have been playing with in my poetry but Special K have managed to warp this message to sell their brand. I know none of this is surprising as they are advertising a brand but we need to realise their immense power over our subconscious body image insecurities. We need to recognise that these adverts are not selling body positivity but a product which they are trying to communicate will give you the body you can be positive about.