I Saw This Problematic Commercial
Let's Talk About It
Hello friends! Today I want to talk about Novo Nordisk’s controversial commercial. The ad has already been removed from all relevant platforms, but I was early enough to catch its full version – the one that can no longer be found anywhere. When I watched it, I felt uncomfortable. And I definitely wasn’t the only one – I saw very angry, emotional responses to the ad, which is completely understandable, but because they came from a mostly emotional place, they didn’t really help me organize my thoughts about what exactly was wrong with the commercial in a clear and defined way. So instead of reacting immediately, like so many influencers and TV channels did (rightly so – it was important to get the commercial off the air as soon as possible to prevent further damage), I decided to take a moment and really articulate what’s wrong with the ad. This way we can discuss it in a concrete, critical manner, and learn from the mistakes made regarding the way we talk about food, weight, and obesity.
So before we start let me tell you about the commercial in question:
Scene One: The elevator opens, and a plus sized woman enters. She clearly isn’t comfortable in the full elevator; she looks guilty for taking up space. The scene is accompanied by music with the lyrics, “slight embarrassment in the morning”.
Scene Two: The same woman is standing in the light of an open fridge in the middle of the night, looking for something, making up her mind, shaking her head as though trying to get over the impulse or desire to eat. She closes the fridge, clearly frustrated with her appetite. The lyrics go, “looking for a bite of happiness”.
Scene Three: The woman is dancing at a party. She seems to be having fun, but she has to take a break to catch her breath. The lyrics go, “you’re short of breath, what’s your BMI?”
Scene Four: A man is walking up some stairs, which seems to take a great deal of effort. The lyrics go, “it takes a minute”.
Scene Five: A man is playing soccer with a couple of kids, while the song in the background goes, “panting with Dor and Geva”.
Scene Six: Seven people are sat around an outdoor table set with food. The man at the head of the table is offered some and the lyrics go “no thanks I’m full”, the man mouthing the words as if he’s saying them. It is obvious that he would like the cake he is offered. “What’s your BMI?”
Scene Seven: A woman hesitatingly steps onto a scale which reads BMI instead of an actual weight.
Scene Eight: We revisit all the previous characters and each asks, “What’s my – What’s my – What’s my BMI?”
Finally, a narrator says, “Obesity is a chronic disease that can be treatment. Search for MY BMI and ask your doctor about Chronic Obesity Disease for a weekly medical treatment along with recommendations for lifestyle changes. “
Now that we’re all on the same page let’s talk about what I think the ad really missed and what we, as a society, need to note!
1 – Insensitive timing – No commercial is aired in a vacuum. It is aired at a specific time, in a specific climate, and this ad’s timing was incredibly insensitive! It aired at a time of uncertainty, when we are already under chronic stress. Over the past couple of years, especially since the war began, many people have been using food as a coping mechanism. Not because they’re weak but because they’re human and it’s a legitimate and effective way to cope, it’s something our body knows to sublimate stress onto. Therefore, attacking the idea of eating and emotional eating now of all times is cruel and irresponsible!
2 – Unclear Phrasing – the ad’s message is very confusing, lying somewhere between aggressive marketing, an attempt at giving medical information, and an appeal to emotion. The idea that was conveyed was that anyone who weighs a lot or “takes up a lot of space” is automatically considered sick. Without asking the actual questions: What kind of life do you lead? How much physical activity do you do? How is your mental wellbeing? How do your workdays look? What is your body telling you?
And this is straight out of my viewing experience: I couldn’t understand what symptoms the ad is telling me to identify and tell my doctor. There was no real medical explanation or any attempt to foster an honest and respectful discussion of the topic. And maybe the part that bothered me most was how it normalized feeling shame about our bodies. Instead of offering practical tools to keep healthy, deal with our circumstances or notice actual red flags – the ad left me with a bad feeling. Like it’s ok, maybe even necessary, to be ashamed of your body. And I truly believe that there is no bodily experience that should be dealt with through shame. I’ve never met anyone who became healthier through it.
3 – Blurring the lines between health and weight – one of the most problematic things, and it’s something I’ve seen many times, is the blurring of lines between weight and health.
It is, unfortunately, one of the most common ways in which eating disorders are normalized in our culture. There is a deep confusion and lack of understanding, and many people believe that a lower weight is necessarily healthier. As someone who has experienced anorexia for years, I can tell you that despite my low weight I was not healthy at all. True, weight can be a measure for keeping track of our body, and so can BMI, but there are so many other parameters for health: blood tests, resting heart rate, blood pressure, various other bodily functions. When I didn’t weigh much, all of these measurements were screaming the opposite of health. The main problem with the ad is that it doesn’t make this crucial distinction. There’s no difference between someone who is heavier (and doesn’t fit in with an arbitrary beauty standard) and someone who suffers from chronic obesity disease, which is a specific medical condition. And what makes this worse is the way it’s marketed, it works because it touches all these sensitive topics: guilt, ignorance, uncertainty, confusion about our body, weight, and nutrition, and it makes us look for problems that may not even be there.
4 – Pushing the term BMI – the main recurring motif of the ad was the question: “What’s your BMI?”, and the truth is that this is precisely the problem. Taking one very narrow measurement and making it the chant of health or illness is incredibly simplistic when it comes to our bodies. It’s true that BMI is a convenient tool in medicine and medical research, giving a general gist when it comes to statistics and different demographics. But it’s also often inaccurate when it comes to the individual, and doesn’t give good insight into the real state of one’s body. The big issue is that it’s incredibly tempting to just stick to this number. It’s simple, easy, apparently definite like calories or weight and there’s something very convenient about this simplicity, but our body is so much more complex than that. Everyone has their own life story, their own genetics, stress levels, lifestyle, medical history, and none of these make into their BMI. That’s why aggressively pushing the motto, “What’s your BMI”, isn’t just simplistic, it’s also dangerous. It creates a feeling of guilt and panic over a measurement that isn’t necessarily indicative of your health.
5 – Body Image – taking a character and saying that this is what a fat person looks and acts like (can’t dance cause they’re too fat) is hurtful. Generalizations and stereotypes of this kind are hurtful and have no place in a health-focused commercial. Not everyone who is overweight experiences difficulties with movement or breathing, not every bodily difficulty is necessarily related to weight, and this kind of representation serves to support the notion that if you weigh a certain amount are necessarily sick or incapacitated which deepens shame and keeps people away from getting treatment, also leading to unhealthy ways to look at our bodies.
6 – Gaining weight isn’t necessarily an illness – gaining weight can happen for a multitude of reasons: stress, genetics, lack of physical activity, fatigue, an illness, a hormonal imbalance, and many more. Meaning that weight gain can happen just as easily in a healthy as it can due to disease, and it can be chronic obesity disease which is a disease in and of itself. I’d like to emphasize that the only way to know if you have a problem is through A – keeping a diary or written record (example here) and B – keeping track of various test results including but not limited to weight, height, BMI, blood pressure, blood tests and C – making sense of these with a medical professional who has your medical history. This is the only real way to know if you have a medical condition and what your treatment should be, definitely not an ad that popped up somewhere and is trying to sell you something.
We all deserve to be healthy and feel good in our body, and shame is absolutely not the way. I hope this quick discussion helped you arrange your thoughts. That’s it for today, I hope you had fun reading my criticism of the ad. If you’d like more on this subject I think you’ll like, “The Weight of Weight”. As always I’d be happy to hear from you about anything, so write to me on social media!
-Sapir-