Little Girls Will All Want To Grow Up And Look Like Pepsi Cans
Some are claiming...don't laugh...that the new "skinny" Diet Pepsi can reinforces "dangerous stereotypes" about women and body image. Right. And...that would be the stereotype where women are more attractive if they appear to be five or six inches high, a little thinner than the usual Pepsi can, and made of aluminum?
Sarah Skidmore writes on MSNBC about the new can Pepsi has launched in time for New York's Fashion Week:
"Our slim, attractive new can is the perfect complement to today's most stylish looks, and we're excited to throw its coming-out party during the biggest celebration of innovative design in the world," Jill Beraud, chief marketing officer for PepsiCo said in a statement.Critics say it is nothing to celebrate.
Brand experts praised the new design but say the company may be a bit off on its sales pitch that skinny is better. The National Eating Disorders Association said it takes offense to the can and said the company's comments are both "thoughtless and irresponsible."
Libby Copeland summed up many of the criticisms in an article for Slate.
"Same old story - aspirational, looks-oriented advertising with a thin layer of faux-empowerment on top," Copeland wrote. "If you're confident on the inside, you'll be skinny on the outside, or something. Huh?"
Most men like women who are not fat. Telling women that being any size is just fine, and telling men that they "should" lust after you for what's within and not care about the outside just isn't going to cut it. We're also not going to change the effects of 1.8 million or so years of evolution by changing or not changing a Pepsi can.
To explain further, a quote from my piece on the truth about beauty from Psychology Today:
While Western women do struggle to be slim, the truth is, women in all cultures eat (or don't) to appeal to "the male gaze." The body size that's idealized in a particular culture appears to correspond to the availability of food. In cultures like ours, where you can't go five miles without passing a 7-Eleven and food is sold by the pallet-load at warehouse grocery stores, thin women are in. In cultures where food is scarce (like in Sahara-adjacent hoods), blubber is beautiful, and women appeal to men by stuffing themselves until they're slim like Jabba the Hut.
By the way, I don't use any artificial sweeteners, nor do I eat sugar, which seems to be poison for the human body. Regarding the aspartame in Diet Pepsi, Dr. Michael Eades writes in the comments on his site:
I think it's probably best to avoid any kind of artificial sweeteners, but if you're going to use one, I think Splenda is the best choice.
Here's Dr. Eades' very cool wife, Dr. Mary Dan Eades, who Gregg and I just met, on artificial sweeteners, quoting an American Association of Cereal Chemists book, Sweeteners: Alternative Handbook by Amy L. Nelson:
Aspartame: Sold under the brand name NutraSweet, the compound was also an accidental discovery in 1965 by a chemist at Searle & Company. (Another finger sucker, apparently.) It is a synthetic, white, crystalline powder, made of two amino acids (L-aspartic acid and L-phenylalanine) with about 160-220 times the sweetness of sucrose. Positives include a clean taste without metallic bitterness. Drawbacks include its notorious instability in non-acidic aqueous solutions or when heated, at which point it loses its sweetness and potentially becomes toxic. When the molecule disassociates (breaks apart) one potential decomposition compound is methanol or 'wood alcohol'-the stuff sometimes in moonshine that makes you go blind if you drink it. Just image what could be happening to those aspartame molecules inside all those cans of diet soda in the back of a delivery truck on a sweltering August day in Atlanta. We have personally witnessed a startling array of clinical ills anecdotally attributable to its use, ranging from severe and reproducible stomach cramping to sleeplessness to hives to emotional disturbance to memory loss. There's some evidence (again, anecdotal) that these potential ills might even be of greater risk to people on a low carb dietary structure. These concerns, in part, are what prompted our reversal of opinion about the sweetener's safety after writing Protein Power and why we no longer allow any little blue packets in our house. We do not recommend its use!
It's also possible that artificial sweeteners lead to weight gain. From a Sydney Morning Herald story:
Scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied rats that were fed food with the artificial sweetener saccharin and rats fed food with glucose, a natural sugar. In comparison to rats given yoghurt sweetened with glucose, those that ate yoghurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories and put on more weight and body fat.The researchers said sweet foods may prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, but when sweetness in the form of artificial sweeteners is not followed by a large amount of calories, the body gets confused, which may lead to eating more or expending less energy than normal.
"The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with high-calorie sugar," Purdue researchers Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson wrote in the journal Behavioural Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.
The National Eating Disorders Association recognizes that Pepsi is launching a multimillion dollar marketing campaign around their new product and wants to piggy back on the investment. They're hoping that any time the product is discussed, their issue or organization will be mentioned. All it will cost them is a few press releases stating they are offended and dramatizing the horrors that will result from skinny cans. This happens all the time.
and telling men that they "should" lust after you for what's within and not care about the outside just isn't going to cut it.
That makes me crazy, it's an issue where women can demonstrate an amazing degree of hypocrisy. They get to own their bodies and have reproductive choices, but we can't own ours, we're not even allowed to choose who we find physically attractive.
jj at February 13, 2011 6:48 AM
Damn so that is why so many Japanese and Korean girls are so skinny and short in Korea. I thought it was genetics but the whole time it has been the mind bending soda cans that had been influences. Damn you COCA COLA AND PEPSI can you not stop you imperialistic and culture destroying ways.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xyneo/1869907429/
The stupidity! Sometimes it really hurts to hear these things.
John Paulson at February 13, 2011 7:41 AM
Sounds like Red Bull is about to be in a lot of trouble...
Cousin Dave at February 13, 2011 7:51 AM
All my years of no carb dieting, the one thing I could never give up was my little pink packet of Sweet n Low. I cannot drink my coffee unsweetened and I've tried. The Eades have certainly done their research, but coffee is the one thing I can't go without!
Kristen at February 13, 2011 9:41 AM
It's so maddening. All you ever hear about in the media is the horrible obesity epidemic and what a national crisis it is. Then once anyone implies that being thin is a good thing, the eating disorder people jump down their throats.
KarenW at February 13, 2011 1:38 PM
I thought at first it was an hourglass shaped can. Not just a narrower, taller can.
If that is is -- why don't they rail at the protein shake cans?
Jim P. at February 13, 2011 7:45 PM
Too a degree some of these organizations are needed but they need to learn to pick their fights.
The organization above - yes make us aware and point the fingers at the fashion industry and its over the top thin models. NO to complaining about a thin diet soda can.
Nurses Association - Yes make us aware of the hard job nurses do and to making their lot in life better. NO to complaining about some restaurant that has it's waitresses dress in sexy nurse outfits.
Muslims - Okay complain about media portrayals and some injustices. But NO to rioting about some stupid cartoons that most of the world did not know about. Yes to giving a person a chance to pray - NO to giving that person their own special praying room and special bathing areas.
ON a side not I am suspicious of this article a little. It might be a frame up. Reporter gets story from boss write something about the new Pepsi can. Reporter in wanting to just rewrite a press release from Pepsi decides to sex it up and calls around from comments from some organizations. Maybe most go "What - So What - Whatever - bye" OR "sounds interesting AND ..." until the reporter gets the comment they want which is shock and horror and so on which is given to them by some over top knee jerk reaction.
Now said story which was something quirky is now something outrageous and defining, etc, etc.
John Paulson at February 13, 2011 9:08 PM
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