A recent spot previewing the CBS show “How I Met Your Mother” had a character complaining about a situation resembling “a fat lonely girl your mom made you call.” That, the Dove campaign for “inner beauty” and the recent “Pass It On” campaigns which feature lame scenarios designed to boost national self-image, all make me want to scream.
Truth is, it’s impossible to be perfect, beautiful or happy. Life isn’t designed that way. Of course we can slim down if we want to eat nuts and berries and eschew all other foods for life. We can glop on makeup and hair goo to improve some aspects of our faces. We can try to be nicer to people, too: I’m sure that fat lonely girl would be less fat and lonely if somebody would call her (if you had to sit all day waiting for somebody to call you, you’d be fat and lonely too). Beneath the surface there are still some very internally ugly people, like serial killers, corporate cheats, terrorists and marital infidels who can appear just as “normal” as the rest of us.
I would like to see a Dove commercial in which the woman doesn’t already have a ton of makeup on after supposedly rinsing the beauty bar off her face.
The reason most of America is fat lies in the unfair food retail system that puts fast food within reach of the poor, taints healthy foods with chemicals and overprices it for the middle class and proportions all packaged foods in such a way that it’s impossible to figure the math if you are an average citizen. The rich, in fact, seem to enjoy depriving themselves for what they call beauty.
Did you ever look at the way nutrition labels are allowed to be couched in deceptive language? One would have to be a rocket scientist to plan a decent meal.
Also, as an employee of a call center environment, I can tell you that spending all but 65 minutes (one 45-minute lunch and two ten-minute breaks) a day seated in a cubicle tethered to a headset is not the best way to stay healthy. In fact, I’ve seen more grossly obese employees than usual, and they all have health and self-esteem issues. The same people who would be loath to call a fat, lonely girl, ironically, are the ones who call into phone centers and abuse calltaking associates in the first place. Often these calltakers, psychologically speaking, are underpaid but overly dedicated masochists who work all day for the public and soothe their damaged minds with a good meal. Zapped in a microwave, it packs upwards of 2,000 calories onto a body that is not allowed to work out. Take that, Jillian Michaels!
In fact, I’d like to see the Biggest Loser folks try to figure out how to get a call center into shape. How do you get a treadmill under a cubicle chair?
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