Granted, you can’t blame General Mills, or their marketing firm, alone. They’re part of a disempower-while-pretending-to-empower club with the likes of Special K. You know something’s afoot with them thanks to the tell-tale tape measure wrapped around the box. Eat Special K to lose weight. Huh? But Special K has gone one step further than even Cheerios, offering a “Diet Plan…” as they say on the box. It’s only slightly less toxic than, say, a diet of Equal and iced tea and underscores the preposterous nature of the marketing universe’s relation to food, women, and diet.
Let’s take a hypothetical (but not unreasonable) look at what might happen should you follow the plan. Part 1 involves eating a bowl of Special K for breakfast with a 2/3 cup of skim milk and fruit. In this case, we’re talking Special K with “red berries” - actually dried and sweetened strawberries. So, you eat breakfast and all is well…until around 10:00, when you wonder why you feel so…drowsy. You read the panel of the Special K box and notice the second ingredient is…yes, sugar. But you smile and remember: it will help you lose weight. Besides—don’t doze off!—you have lunch to look forward to a few hours away. And what’s on the menu? According to Part 2 of the Plan: “Replace either lunch or dinner with the Special K meal.”
For a moment, you wonder, meal? What meal? Then you remember, this is diet talk and they use words loosely. That way you think you’re eating a meal when you’re actually eating a bowl of cereal. Granted, you may be aching for a roast beef sandwich or a tuna fish salad or something not in a bowl but you’re stuck—the bowl now, or give up a sensible dinner later. You go for the bowl. By 2:00, your sugar level has dropped at an alarming rate. If you work at home, you demand the kids take a three-hour nap because you need one. At work, you’re sacked out at your desk and folks are wondering if you have a drinking problem. By 6:00, you’re comfortably settled at the dinner table ready to eat the first sensible meal of the day.
Well, I could go on, but why bother? You probably get the point. Besides, Special K’s diet isn’t really that bad. It only lasts for two weeks. Granted, your sugar level is so out-of-whack by that point and you’re so buzzed by the highs and lows that your 24th bowl really sets you off and you commit a felony, only your brain is too blurred with hunger to realize you did it. Don’t worry: once they lock you up, you get on the prison scale and see that the Special K claims were right: You did “Lose up to 6 lbs in Two Weeks” as the box promises. Besides, once your crack attorney gets you off on an insanity plea, and you’re more nourished, albeit heavier, from the prison food, you can ably resume your life.
Take that Mark, Bill, and Steve!
Of course, it isn’t just General Mills and Kellogg. It’s more aspects of marketing, women, diet, and power than we can tuck into this piece...although it might be worth a try. If you want to get first-hand experience and see Special K’s tape measure live, go to your local supermarket. For more about Steve, Bill, and Marc, go to: http://www.foxnews.com/video- rearch/m/21840792/soggy_ cereal.htm#q=Cheerios.
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