And the winner for the best performance in a never-ending food drama is… All of us!
As soon as I heard this, I cranked up the radio to hear the rest of the ad. I really should explore getting an ad agency behind me. In a mere 30 seconds, the commercial was able to illustrate the food guilt and diet drama that most women face. The campaign’s ending tagline was “Spread No Drama.”
Knowing that this would be the topic of my next blog post, I Googled the company and tagline to try to find the radio spot online. I wasn’t able to find the radio segment, but I did find an article about the campaign. The article states, “The new and entertaining campaign addresses the ongoing habit of dramatic internal dialogues surrounding what to eat and not to eat and positions I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter® as a simple solution that cuts the food drama, not the taste.” The article also embedded a YouTube video of a television commercial in which Eva Longoria dramatizes these internal dialogues.
Longoria’s dramatization of women’s internal dialogue surrounding food is reminiscent of a 2011 Yoplait commercial. However Yoplait’s commercial was banned. The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) claimed that dramatizing these internal dialogues would promote the normalization of eating disorders.
However, from a Happy Calories Don’t Count® perspective, all of these players are missing the point. These internal dialogues of “diet drama” are a necessary – legitimate – and very normal – result of the fundamental, core, cultural, “diet and exercise” model. The “diet and exercise” model suggests that our bodies are essentially a caloric balance sheet of what food goes in and what exercise goes out. That model suggests that we must “pay a price” to eat. The price? Exercise – or weight gain.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter® and Yoplait might have fewer calories than their market competitors. But this information is only relevant (and marketable) from within the context of the “diet and exercise” model. Women may be able to choose a lower calorie option for butter or yogurt, but I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter® and Yoplait have done nothing to actually solve the underlying “diet drama.” Furthermore, by marketing these products from within the context of the “diet and exercise” model, these companies only perpetuate that model – and continue to “spread the drama.”
And as a survivor of five stints of treatment for an eating disorder, I can tell you from first hand experience that the NEDA also completely missed the mark. That internal dialogue is normal! The “eating disorder mentality” is normal! It is a normal consequence of the cultural “diet and exercise” model. It’s just that a smaller segment of the population takes it to the extreme. Preventing advertisers from dramatizing this internal dialogue does nothing to heal or prevent “diet drama” on any scale – from the mild chronic anxiety to a diagnosed “disorder.”
To truly “spread no drama,” we must reject the model that is causing it in the first place. We must reject the model that suggests we must pay a price to eat. We must reject the model that disconnects us from the wisdom of our own bodies.
All of these advertising campaigns are based on the idea that there is a relationship between diet and exercise. But the relationship is not between diet and exercise. There is no relationship between diet and exercise. The relationship is between each of us and our own body. Food is simply a vehicle through which we express ourselves in relationship to our body. Exercise is also a vehicle through which we express ourselves in relationship to our body. Food and exercise are both ways in which we express ourselves in relationship to our body, but they are not related to each other.
When we truly understand that, fundamental healing can occur. The internal dialogue changes. And we truly live drama free.