Might be an unpopular opinion but I’m not terribly thrilled with the new Halo Top ad. I’m all for body acceptance but part of the reason COVID hit the U.S. so hard is because of co-morbidities like obesity. There has to be a line btw “real” bodies and not celebrating a state that causes so many medical issues - Ie overweight without the medical definition of very obese. Do you think brands have gone too far in the other direction?

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The ad confuses me. If she really doesn’t care, and wants to embrace her body positivity, then eat real ice cream. Not this weird, fake, low carb, whipped air. Either we are modern women, eating what we want and not giving any fucks? or we’re panicking and dieting. Which is it?

likesmartupliftingfunny

Maybe I’m nuts, but I love halo top 😂😂 the mint chip one is really good! You need to let it sit on the counter for a few mins before diving in though, otherwise yes, the texture is a bit strange.

Also- I liked the ad. I think it’s more about not taking life too seriously and not putting pressure on yourself to fit into some perfect ideal of beauty.

As someone else mentioned, I would love to see more mid-sized/ average women in ads. We have models and we have plus sized, and most women (at least the ones I know) are something in between.

The reason the US had been hit so hard by covid is because of our intensely unqualified president and his GOP cronies who ignored experts for months. Please keep me and my fellow fat ladies outta this and let us enjoy some damn ice cream every once in a while.

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I love it, personally. Is she supposed to spend all day worried about her weight because she’s overweight? You can eat dessert and lose weight at the same time.

I know for me, I do things because I love myself. I think I’m gorgeous, I’m overweight, not quite obese but let people have their way, I should hate how I look.

At the end of the day, we’re talking about a fake ice cream company. If people were truly concerned about the health of this country, our healthcare would sway more towards preventative care with universal access.

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This is exhausting. No, you shouldn’t binge eat. That is an eating disorder. Would I call eating a pint of diet ice cream a binge? Ehh... probably not as it’s not going to make you feel sick like pint of regular ice cream would. I’ve been in therapy for binge eating. I don’t see this ad as problematic.

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Covid and obesity (and diabetes) is something I hope can help change this dialogue. I hate the shaming of heavier people and think there should be more normal bodies on tv, etc. but we tend to only have extremes: size 0 and size 20. The 20 are the token diversity play. When really the world has soooo much variety in shape. We never see average size 10 or someone with hips (I don’t mean kardashian curvy with giant noobs, I mean a normal woman with hips), or someone with a belly, or even a fit size 8.

But I also think this “size is not health” narrative is not generally accurate. Very few bodies over 200-250 lbs are healthy. Very few. They may be resilient, they may be strong, but very few of us are built to sustain that weight long term before things start to get more complicated.

I’d rather “size is not beauty” than “size is not health” bc size does impact health. That’s just science.

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OP — as a strategist, part of your job is research. I invite you to investigate evidence-based materials about the science of weight loss, the health at every size treatment model, and the racist history of equating body shape and size with health. Once you’ve done that, and can cite those materials to support your opinion about body mass and causation vs correlation with disease, it would be interesting to have a conversation about the strategy and execution of this ad and whether or not it effectively does what it’s supposed to do: sell halo top.

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this this this.
spent years in treatment for anorexia, including time during my ad career, to learn and understand this.
showing bodies of many sizes isn’t just for bandwagoning... it’s a healthy way to normalize women’s natural bodies. normalizing our perception of natural bodies can help us stop shaming ourselves and stop perpetuating cycles of unhealthy, punishing behaviour.

oh, and treatment finally got me to give up halo top and enjoy ice cream again. really enjoy eating food that’s not a science experiment created as a result of women being shamed to have their bodies look a certain, acceptable way.

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With all the garbage going on in the world right now THIS is what you choose to get upset about? A woman in an ice cream ad dancing and having a good time? I have about as much belief that you’re actually a woman in advertising as I do that you are sincerely concerned about the health of this person and not just trying to be an attention-seeking troll. Critique the Dos Equis ads for making drinking look cool af and get back to me.😙

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It’s all about body shaming women. Stop gaslighting women by only focusing on what we look like.

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There are nutritionists who believe that there aren’t actually that many health risks associated with being overweight. Doctors tend to discriminate against fat people and blame their problems entirely on weight, which skews statistics. There’s research coming out that backs this up. Just something to think about before you cloak your fat shaming with concern for others.

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I’m not concerned for anyone. I just thinks it’s a boring ad.

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They’re using the idea that women need permission from outside forces (like their brand) to feel good about their bodies. ANY brand with a focus on calories, diet, or “lightness” should not do this. AGAIN...a food brand cannot and should not do this.

I don’t care who weighs what, just don’t equate a relationship a woman has with her body to your food brand. Jesus Christ.

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SD1 thank you! This exactly!!!

It’s okay to acknowledge that different types of people exist in the world. It may even be validating for someone to see a person who looks like them on screen. Acknowledging that fat people exist and can enjoy themselves doesn’t mean you’re celebrating the ills of the world. Weight stigma is actually a strong contributor to poor health.

That being said, Halo Top is pretty gross. In real life, it’d probably be one of those “shoulds”—“I should eat fake frozen sugar water instead of real ice cream.”

likehelpful

I personally just don’t like the spot, but I don’t think it’s the worst to be showing a more diverse range of bodies. People who represent the average size in this country need to be seen and normalized; being a size 12-16 doesn’t always equate to being unhealthy.

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Then why not eat full calorie ice cream? If you feel like things like salad / diets / exercise / skipping dessert are detrimental to your overall quality of life and enjoyment (completely valid), then why eat an ice cream that's designed to be lower calorie for those who do subscribe to things like dieting / exercise / calorie restriction as a way of life?

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I’m one of those people that in order to stay a healthy weight has to diet and work out constantly, normal ice cream is something I afford myself maybe a few times a year. It’s been this way my entire life. I don’t really care for the halo top ad and I get the messaging is strange but it’s the assumption that your average overweight person isn’t trying to lose weight and is voluntarily choosing health risks that’s exhausting to me. That’s been my entire life, and no I do not “yo yo diet” it’s been a lifestyle for me since I was 14.

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100% agree with you. There seems to be absolutely no in-between in commercials. Can’t we just show “average” (excuse this awful word) bodies and beauties? It’s always extremely thin or extremely obese. It’s always extreme “fake” faces or people with skin diseases. Like??? How do most women relate to either sides of the spectrum? Anyway, FFT...

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What is the difference between “promoting” and “showing?”

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OP’s original concern doesn’t even make any sense because the food being advertised is low-calorie ice cream. She’s on a fucking diet, so the diet industrial complex isn’t being threatened here. Hallelujah! Men are so exhausting.

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You stand corrected, OP!! Seems to be a very popular opinion. One that I whole-heartedly agree with. The stuff that came from my 72 cousins on the east coast was INFINITELY better than this.

Besides. after everything they’ve done to stand for what’s right in this world we’re living in, GIVE ME ALL THE FULL FAT BEN AND JERRYS

likesmart

Ha. Yessss. Well actually I’m more of a gelato gal but yesss

I think the problem is that fat shaming won’t help people get in shape for their health. For people to care about their health, they need to have a good self esteem, love for themselves. Calling someone fat is not going to make that persona make a better life choice, it can even to the opposite: triggering anxiety eating disorders. So I think that if we want to go deeper and closer to the root. Is not about beauty or health, both will happen once people have self love.

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Thank you. The sickest I have ever been was when I was trying to be thin in the name of “health.” Fat shaming doesn’t make anyone healthier.

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As an overweight woman, it resonates with me in that I wanted that experience and I can’t have it with real ice cream so Halo is for me. But that’s as far as their insight goes.

The full circle for me is when I think about all the ways I’ve tried to trick my body into food that tasted close to the real thing but was “healthier” because it was lower points (on ww) or sugar free. Guess what? Still overweight.

I think Halo is reinforcing a negative eating behavior that is actually triggering for some women.

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I dance when I eat and I’m always in my underwear at home when not working. The two things happen fairly often for me 😂😂

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Off topic slightly but ‘stop shoulding yourself’...in a NZ accent ...woah.

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Fat people don’t have to always be on a weight loss journey. There is more to life.
They don’t have to eat low calorie food just because they are fat.
And eating high calorie food didn’t necessarily make them fat.

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The ad confused me personally. Why go the body inclusivity route if your product is really a diet product disguised as “healthy” it just implies dieting versus indulging on some real ice cream.

I’d rather have one scoop of real ice cream at 300 calories than an entire pint of sugar alcohol. But that’s just me.

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I have to agree that mostly we see extremes — very thin or clearly overweight. And everyone looks pretty well proportioned. I love to see all bodies celebrated. But there are not a lot of other types shown. Case in point: the AT&T spokesperson, Lily. In one TV spot I noticed she has a curvy butt. But in every other spot she’s either sitting or there is a counter blocking her from the waist down. Why? Why can’t we see that she looks like so many of us?

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Agreed. Even when Vogue started coming out with the body issues (which was a while ago before inclusion was a thing) all the short people were super thin and more full figured were Amazonian 6ft+. There are obviously lots of in between! Or beyond that, why not have more attractive men with average-looking women? Or fit men with curvy women! It goes beyond showing different body types and instead, completely breaking the societal molds (which this ad definitely did not do).

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