Image via Wikipedia - their version of fitness (not mine!)

I love advertising, and I truly appreciate cleverly or elegantly done ads. And I try not to let most advertising bother me, unless it’s truly horrendous. But Special K, a cereal long held up as a ‘diet’ solution for morning breakfasts, has gone just a little south of promoting healthy body image for women with its latest advertisement.

A model who embodies everything appalling about the starving waif look – protruding bones, sunken cheeks, smokey eyes – stares disconsolately at a ginormous bowl, bored out of her gourd at the prospect of yet another bowl of dietary punishment. Then, magically, when she opens her cupboard and finds a box of Special K, her world becomes brightly colored, her hair falls in gorgeous wavy rivulets down her back and all becomes right with the world.

Personally, I don’t *hate* Special K cereal, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. If I had to pick a cereal, and if I was eating from a bowl that size – well, it would probably be either Cocoa Puffs (hey, I have secret sins, too!) or Oat Flakes, my childhood favorite, with fresh strawberries. Special K wouldn’t even make my list if I wanted anything approaching healthy nutrition.

I guess what bothers me about the ad, though, is the idea that in the minds of Special K marketers, this waif-like model embodies the picture of a woman who needs to lose or watch her weight. Frankly, the woman in the ad needs to be held down and force fed a decent breakfast of bacon and eggs, with a side of buttered cheese grits and a hot full-fat whole milk latte. Repeatedly. Until her bones no longer protrude through her shape-hugging neutral sweats. Or until she realizes that Special K may just be the road to wreck and ruin.

Talk about sending the wrong message about a healthy body image.

Special K waif tries to stay motivated to lose weight