Do you know about the controversial Yoplait commercial? It’s the ad that the National Eating Disorders Association fought to have taken off the air. In the commercial, a woman opens the fridge and bargains with herself over whether she can eat a slice a raspberry cheesecake: ”What if I just had a small slice? I was good today. I deserve it.” Then she talks through various scenarios in her head about jogging in place and eating celery sticks to make up for this indulgence.
Here’s the ad in case you haven’t seen it. What’s your take?
The commercial came to NEDA’s attention after the organization received numerous emails and phone calls from eating disorder sufferers. The group believes the ad’s language could easily serve as a trigger for those vulnerable to disordered eating. Lynn Grefe, president and CEO of the NEDA explains:
“This behavior in a commercial tells people with eating disorders, ‘See, it’s even on TV. It’s OK and normal for my head to go through all these mental exercises.’”
Grefe says that NEDA “applauds” Yoplait and parent company General Mills for agreeing to pull the commercial days after the group voiced concerns (although it may still be in rotation in some markets until it’s completely off the air).
“We had no idea,” Tom Forsythe, VP of Corporate Communications for General Mills, said to the Huffington Post. “The thought had never occurred to anyone, and no one raised the point. We aren’t sure that everyone saw the ad that way, but if anyone did, that was not our intent and is cause for concern. We thought it best to take it down.”
NEDA has fought what they describe as “David versus Goliath” battles against numerous companies whose ads encourage an unhealthy relationship with food. The Huffington Post features a slideshow of other advertising campaigns that NEDA says could serve as triggers for those struggling with eating disorders.
Given all the hubbub, Yoplait was “probably wise to stick a fork in” the ad, says David Gianatasio at Adweek.
Maybe not everyone sees the big deal about the commercial. There are a million ads for “diet” foods, what makes this so different? The problem is all about what experts call “restrained eating.” The character in the commercial (which Adweek says looks a lot like Sarah Palin) is having an internal dialogue that is a classic case of restrained eating — that’s where you never let yourself eat what you want or you’re always obsessing over what you eat. This is the struggle of a lot of chronic dieters who deprive themselves and then give in to their cravings and can’t stop. It’s an ongoing cycle of deprivation and out-of-control, regretted eating. The ad just got a little too psychological and seemed to validate this way of thinking.
“I don’t know what’s more stunning,” says Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon. “That Yoplait actually ran this dangerous and perverse ad, or the pervasive dysfunctional thinking that it’s natural for women of all sizes to be guilt-plagued, food-fetishizing calorie-counters who “careen from Restriction Village to… Binge Town.”
Here’s what Ellyn Satter says about restrained eating:
Restrained eating increases abuse of emotional eating. In my clinical experience corroborated by the research, restrained eating exacerbates the tendency to abuse emotional eating. People who are not restrained eaters consume less, not more, under stressful conditions. Restrained eaters try to eat less and less-appealing food than they need and want and are chronically hungry. Trying not to eat in the face of hunger and food-preoccupation takes a lot of energy. Stress undermines the energy to sustain food deprivation, and the person overeats. Thus, rather than overeating in response to stress, the restrained eater disinhibits. The restrained eater still eats a lot, but the root cause is undereating rather than emotional arousal. The cycle continues: The remorseful fallen-away restrained eater redoubles her efforts to restrict and again falls prey to stress induced disinhibition.
Satter recommends the following to avoid restrained eating:
- Feed yourself regularly and reliably. Have meals and snacks at predictable times, and include the food you like.
- Set aside restrained eating. Trust yourself to go to the table hungry and eat until you feel satisfied. Then stop, knowing another meal or snack is coming soon and you can do it again.
- Become more comfortable with your feelings. Know what you feel, including that knowing in choosing how to act. Learn to productively use food for emotional reasons.
- Be clear about what eating can do for you. Eating in a focused fashion is likely to soothe or calm you and even raise your spirits a bit. It won’t resolve the problem-unless the problem is being hungry! When you feel like eating because you are bored, depressed, happy, or sociable, say to yourself, ”It is all right to eat. But first I will find out what I am feeling.”
Then eat positively, deliberately, soothingly, and cheeringly.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This is ridiculous. The thought never even occurred to me. I hated the commercial because it was annoying to watch, but a person’s disordered eating and lack of control is their own problem and should not be put on others, even if said others are companies. Why should anyone else be responsible for someone’s eating disorder? I can see family members being asked to modify their ways in order to help the person with the disorder, but to think that others should be responsible for changing their behavior to accommodate that person, as well, is obnoxious.
I have read tons of blogs and comments about this ad. Lots of people who “don’t understand the big deal” and I think that is very telling… it is engrained in our heads that we associate food as reward or punishment, we associate food intake with “I’ll work out harder to burn it off”. Look, I’m no angel… I probably spent easily oh…. 25 years thinking and behaving this way. When you can just let go of this restrictive diet-minded thinking it is so freeing it is not even funny! I’ve never been healthier AND happier. I have never talked to a single person who said it was better being on a diet and better being restrictive. I hope others take that jump too.
“We had no idea,” Tom Forsythe, VP of Corporate Communications for General Mills, said to the Huffington Post. “The thought had never occurred to anyone, and no one raised the point.
It would have been equally truthful, and more tactful, for GM to say they try to cover all the social and health implications of their marketing but occasionally a consideration slips through the cracks. That no-one raised this point (prior to its airing). They were wise to pull the commercial, at least until the feedback was explored at a corporate level.
NEDA cleverly and appropriately seized on this commercial to draw attention to the symptoms of eating disorders and point out how this might be a destructive commercial message, in their view.
My take, and I have written General Mills to express this, is that had the script in this advertisement been devoid of the one line about weight loss, it could have been a fabulous public service announcement about eating disorders.
That chatter in the first character is real. Most people who do not have an eating disorder see it only as something happening on the outside, that can be fixed if you just fix a few behaviors. They have no idea how much head stuff accompanies the disorder. This ad reminded me a lot of some of the programs developed to help people understand what it’s like to live with a brain controlled by schizophrenia. It’s not pretty, but it’s very real. When people understand what the disorder is really about, that is when real solutions can be found. Eating disorders are classified as Axis I psychiatric disorders for a reason. They alter perception and response to reality.
I suggested to General Mills that they create a challenge for all of the advocates for pulling this ad to create their own ad, as it is far too easy to complain about something without having an acceptable solution. Because most of the feedback to this ad was about getting it pulled rather than creating an acceptable alternative ad, I sense that those with eating disorders were more uncomfortable when faced with the reality of that chatter, which they can often keep private and protected.
The same thing happened in a conference I put together when the audience, containing a lot of people with eating disorder histories, was asked to watch videos of people engaging in sleep-related eating disorders. They clearly were pushed out of their comfort zone. Feeling exposed like that took a bit of the “glamour” out of the disorder. That’s not a bad thing at all. It’s when you feel discomfort that you are most likely to change.
If this ad moved you out of your comfort zone and made it less appealing to have an eating disorder in the first place, it may, in a backwards way, have saved your life.
After all, anorexia has a higher mortality rate than schizophrenia. It’s not a laughing matter.
I always thought the ad was kind of patronizing and in poor taste; stereotyping how women allegedly deal with food (and I guess a lot of them do this, although I don’t. I’d have just eaten a little cheesecake and moved on), but “dangerous” seems like a ridiculous overstatement. (On the other hand, I thought the actress did a really good job with the internal dialogue and subtle facial expressions. She’s cute. She reminds me of my sister-in-law.)
I’ve had friends and acquaintances with eating disorders, so I don’t mean to make light of that, but, good grief, you can’t protect everybody from everything. Why not go after clothing-sales inserts that show models with skinny legs while we’re at it? Special K ads that basically advocate replacing two meals with, what, rice flour and air? Yoplait Light that substitutes artificially-sweetened pseudo-pudding for high-risk desserts? There are zillions of ads that tout weight-loss benefits, and I imagine that any and all of them could be triggering to the wrong person.
I do not see how anyone or even any corporation can be aware of all issues.
It is fine to bring it to their attention but not to criticize their lack of awareness.
I doubt there is ANYTHING on tv or radio or other recorded material that can not be a Trigger to someone. Words/Sounds in any form have great triggering potential.
Not everything can be labeled with a potential trigger warning statement.
Negotiating thoughts are not limited to weightloss issues.
Would there have been a different reaction had the actor been male?
I like Monika’s observation that “exposure” or awareness can lead to a positive change.
I dislike the last sentence: “Yoplait, it is so good.” The implication being that eating Yoplait is “good,” and eating real raspberry cheesecake is “bad.” As if women need any more judgments put on us about what we eat, or that being thin or losing weight is good. The deliberations of the first woman are scary.
I have deliberated similarly, to some degree, and sit in an ED group with women who deliberate about their food that severely. It is frightening to know people really do deliberate that way, and to how I’ve done that, myself. In a way, the commercial is ridiculing that sort of thinking, but on the other hand, it is endorsing that thinking by then suggesting that the way to end that thinking is to eat Yoplait, instead of making peace with one’s body and learning how to eat all foods without obsessive thinking. Therefore, the commercial, in a back-handed way, endorses that sort of deliberating regarding eating normal food, i.e. cheesecake, or dessert in general.
Do we really have to give up all dessert and eat Yoplait, instead? Is that a recipe for sustained behavior, or is such restrictive, deprivation eating really only leading to a binge? And possibly purge, either with exercise, or by….? Is that really a healthy message to send?
It’s one thing to have raspberry cheesecake flavored yogurt, for the pleasure of eating that flavor of yogurt. But it’s another if the implication is that we must deny ourselves the real dessert. It isn’t teaching people to fill up at meals on nutrient dense foods, and then enjoy a beautiful, even nutritionally decadent, dessert on occasion, or in modest quantities. So I agree, this commercial is endorsing deprivation and disordered deliberations about one’s body and dessert. All of the Yoplait ads for this product are suggesting having it *instead* of other foods, which is a shame. Yoplait should simply advertise this product for it’s great taste (if that is true of the product.)
Makes you wonder if the product *doesn’t* taste that great, so they have to sell it on the basis of being an alternative to real food.