Special K’s ‘Own It’: Inspiring or pandering, again?

Didn’t Dove already do this to death?

Special K ads Sarah Welstead

I know this spot has been out there for a while, but it’s suddenly started showing up every 3 seconds as pre-roll on YouTube and it’s starting to really bug me.

Take a look if you haven’t seen it yet:

I know it’s supposed to be all body-positive and inspiring and everything – and I happen to know that Kelloggs did a lot of research for this, worldwide – but every time I see this, all I think is:

  • .
  • Hasn’t Dove already done this, like, a million times?
  • PLEASE STOP CONDESCENDING TO ME
  • I’m tired of accepting the premise upon which these types of ads are based (i.e. that it’s normal for women to spend so much time hating their bodies, and that a couple of inspiring tv commercials will somehow fix this)
  • That DNCE video of ‘Cake by the Ocean‘, which includes some ‘curvier’ girls as part of the general beach babes, without being sanctimonious or ’empowering’ about it, is probably doing more for body positivity among young people than this piece of cheese.

Feel free to tell me that I am standing in the way of helping young girls everywhere accept their bodies, blah blah blah. But as a woman who has spent most of her life hating her figure just as much as anyone else, I can tell you that (a) this ad is not helping me to reevaluate my whole perspective; and (b) it is definitely not going to prevent any overweight girl or young woman from hearing the kind of snide comments – often from other women! – about how she’s too fat, or unattractive, or somehow ‘less than’ her thin peers.

Maybe Special K should try addressing that.

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