The Problem with Weight Loss "Success Stories"

The health risks of obesity are common knowledge. Most people are aware of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and joint problems as they relate to weight. So why are these concerns never addressed by advertisements for weight-loss products?

Women are constantly shown discussing how they've gotten down to the coveted size 2, or how their husbands love their new bodies. One ad for NutriSystem even contains a woman who gushes that her husband likes to call her a "trophy wife" now that she is thin. These ads consistently put across the message that the only reason we as women should try to lose weight or look better is so we can impress the men in our lives.

Why so tiny? Where is the woman who is happy to have reached a size 12? We as a culture are so inundated with images of skeletal celebrities that the idea of someone feeling great in a double-digit clothing size is ludicrous to us. In fact, if you do the math on many of these ads, the starting size of most of these success stories was barely a double digit. Someone who lost 30 pounds to get into a size 2 started around a size 8 or 10. So these ads feature people who really didn't need to lose weight but have starved themselves down to unnatural standards.

One key group is all but missing: men. A Y chromosome does not make someone impervious to the effects of obesity, so why is it so underrepresented in commercials? The occasional man is shown, but in a completely different light. There isn't a man in these commercials gushing about how his wife can't keep her hands off him. You also don't often hear the male successes talking about how tiny their waist size is. It is generally men who were morbidly obese and have lost enough weight to be relatively average. The standards applied to men to be considered a success are completely out of whack with those applied to women.

So where does that leave health? It would be nice to see someone who lost weight because of the health risks. So many people who are morbidly obese have problems like diabetes and hypertension, and these problems often disappear or reduce with drastic weight loss. So let's see someone who had these problems disappear. I think that is more impressive that going from a size 10 to a size 2 so your husband can't keep his hands to himself.