Women Weight Loss Promotion Transitioning between the different trends is like a new driver trying to learn how to drive a stick shift. In the United States women have a fear of not looking their best or in style. As a result women turn to magazines to keep themselves updated on the latest fashion. Throughout America having a fit and slim body has been a popular trend. Magazines advertise dietary supplements and workouts to help encourage women to look thinner and get in better shape.
Magazines pull women in when women see weight loss supplements that are said to work. Women who are trying to achieve the body that is in style might pay more attention to an ad in the magazine other than women who are already meeting societies’ standards. Magazines show pictures of smaller women in their ads to help encourage larger women to get their bodies like the women in the magazine ads.The women in the ads are extremely pretty, trying to make other women jealous. The picture is also placed on the right side of the ad, that way when someone were to turn the page, the picture of the girl would be the first thing someone would see. That was to draw the attention to the girl of the ad. According to Andrew Mitchell, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto, says, “Most advertisements contain visual elements, and many advertisements provide little product attribute information. The latter advertisements seem to be designed to either trigger an emotional reaction or portray visually the typical users brand. Currents models of persuasion, however, generally assume that attitude formation and change, and eventually behavior are based on the acquisition and retrieval of verbal information about the product” (12). Knowing that advertisers try to get emotional reactions from their readers is good information for magazine readers to have because when they look through magazines they will have an understanding of what advertisers are trying to do. When a reader feels emotional about what they read or saw in an advertisement the reader will know that advertisers put it there to get that certain reaction from them. An example of an ad that is promoting weight loss is an ad for the weight loss supplement called JetFule. In this ad a picture of a woman who is wearing spandex and a sports bra is present. Her legs and her abs show in the picture, and they look as if they have good muscle definition. She is also holding a kettle bell in the picture. A kettle bell is a piece of equipment that one uses while working out. The kettle bell shows that work has to be done to get the body that she has. The ad also says “The Well-Defined Woman Selects JetFule.” This is saying that if someone is well-defined or wish to be well-defined then this product will be chosen. JetFule uses the woman in their ad to catch the attention of female readers to show what kind of body that they can have if they used their product. However, with the kettle bell in the picture, it says that one must work out in order to get the results that are wanted. In the journal “Quality of Life Research” “Weight loss is associated with dramatic improvement in self-reported energy levels and an enhancement in ones ability to perform daily activities”(277).This journal article proves that when there are higher levels of energy and one has the ability to do everyday tasks, it has an impact on weight loss. Understanding that exercise is need to help weight loss should be known. However, many people rely on the weight loss supplements to help weight loss without adding exercise. Exercise will help burn off fat and when exercise and a weight loss supplements are combined, wanted results will appear. The JetFuel advertisement makes readers aware that exercise must be involved by making the kettle bell present in the ad.
Also, around the bottles of each type of Jetfuel pills, are different background pictures to describe what each pill does. For example, around the “superburn” pill bottle a background that looks like fire, represents the burning of fat. And around the “AQX” pill bottle, a water background is present to represent getting rid of excess water weight. The ad shows the different types of supplements that can be taken so that possibly one of them will target what the consumer wants and is looking for. According to Sofia Bratu, a student at SpiruHaret University claims, “When persuasive appeals are covert and audiences are unwary, they can be manipulated or deceived by hidden consumption cues, and focuses on the hidden persuasions of product placement” (333).
Another product that tries to achieve the same goals is a product called FitMiss. In this magazine ad the name of the product is in the colors black and pink. The color pink is put there to target the women because it’s more of a feminine color. The general stereotype for girls is that their favorite color is pink. This is to draw the attention of women as soon as they turn the page to their ad. This product wants women to pay attention to their ad, and buy having colors that generally appeal to women they will achieve their goal.
The woman that is present in the ad is dressed in a pink sports bra and black spandex. She has got a slim and fit body that meets societies standards. In the picture, certain parts of the body were shadowed and others were not such as her lower parts of her legs. The areas that are not shadowed draw more attention because they can be seen. The parts of her body that can be seen are the parts that most women desire, a thin tight stomach and toned muscular legs. M. Khawaja and R.A. Afifi-Soweid, health professors at the University of Beirut, states in their article that “An increasing proportion of Lebanese adolescents considers thinness a marker of female beauty. Young urban women almost everywhere now value once a Western phenomenon extreme thinness, because of the propagation of thin models by global media” (352) Women throughout the world are trying to achieve the slim body that society is demanding. Young women feel as though they aren’t pretty if they aren’t fitting in with the trend. Women should be aware that advertisers use thin models in ads to help promote thinness.
The two weight loss supplement ads use thin, healthy looking women to help advertise because they want other women across the country to see what they could have. Media is always trying to find a way to advertise the latest trends and encourage others to follow along. Rae Langford, an assistant professor at Texas Woman’s University School of Nursing says, “Pick up any newspaper or magazine, and see how advertisements promoting “quick weight loss” abound. In our society, thin is in, and fat is regarded as a stigma. Fat people are often ostracized at social functions, find discrimination in the job market, and are somehow viewed as inferior or of lesser character due to a “lack of willpower” (556) With the change in trends, people treat others differently if they are not following along with the trend. Being thin is the current trend; therefore, those who aren’t following within the trend get criticized. The two newspaper ads follow along with the promotion of thinness, and many other advertisements do also.
The desires and standards of our society change throughout the years. The women of today are currently struggling to achieve the thin and fit body that society thinks is the best. In magazines and television ads, thin healthy looking models are present to demonstrate what women should look like. Due to the urge of looking like a model, many women have become anorexic. Therefore, ads for weight loss supplements and miniature workouts started showing up in magazines. The ads have thin and muscular women to show that work should be done to lose weight, but the supplement was there to help. Ads show different types of supplements that target different problems to help make their chances of getting business better. And they also choose colors that are more appealing to the female gender.