(PCM) Last night during my viewing of The Walking Dead’s mid-season finale, I caught a new commercial from Weight Watchers that left me a bit baffled. In fact, it wasn’t even until the end of the commercial that I realized that I was even viewing a commercial for Weight Watchers.
It was always my opinion that Weight Watchers was anti fat shaming, however the advertisement that I viewed truly seemed to promote the direct opposite. Playing on the popular kid’s tune “Happy And You Know It”, the commercial featured people who were both happy and sad chowing down on a variety of snack food items such as cake, ice cream, corn dogs and more. The words of the song were changed to “If you’re happy and you know it, eat a snack. If you’re sad and you know it, eat a snack.”
Surely, on its’ way to becoming the new fat-shaming anthem, the chorus was “If your’re sad and you know it and your face will fully show it, if your sad and you know it, eat a snack!”. The tag line of “Helping with the hard part” followed by the Weight Watchers logo at the end of the commercial was the only thing that even tied the company to the offensive advertisement.
Doesn’t Weight Watchers own company, while promoting healthy eating habits, also allow program users to pretty much eat whatever foods they choose using the Points system. While I’m sure the commercial was obviously meant to be ironic, I still found it to be leaning towards to the offensive side and certainly did not fit with my previous views about the company. In a way it almost promotes obesity if you really think about it, meaning the ad is basically telling people to give into unhealthy food cravings whenever they are feeling anytime of emotion.
If Weight Watchers was trying to spark up a debate they have certainly done a good job of it and I am sure they knew that this type of commercial would stir up opinions from those on both sides of the issue.
Check it out below and let us know what you think:
The post Anyone Else Offended By The New Weight Watchers Commercial? also appeared on PCM Lifestyle.