Strangely, I didn't read the hand as female. But I did read the ad as being filled of body shame.

And I know this is not at all the point of the criticism, but some quick googling suggests that 60 calories of ice cream is, in fact, a little less than a quarter cup, which is WAY than the amount depicted here.

(Going to try to figure it out more precisely, back later.)

This weird love-hate relationship I've been socialized into having with dessert has caused me to be snack-schizoid. I find it easy to avoid buying candies and cookies, but once they're in my house, it's nigh-impossible for me to avoid eating them all in 1-2 days.

I tend to make yogurt-and-fruit-juice popsicles on a regular basis. Because I crave frozen desserts often, and having discrete homemade-pop-sized servings makes it harder to eat a whole quart of ice cream at once.

The only reason I can think of for wanting to eat so much ice cream at one sitting is because Desserts Are Evil, and therefore enjoying any ice cream is suspect. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

Okay, I'm an English major, and frankly, if I turned in an analysis similar to this author's, I'd fail the class. At several points, you've made leaps of logic without illustrating the transition. You're making broad generalizations, and showing a clear bias. While your argument is valid, it could do with tightening up.

As a person who has lost a lot of weight (105 pounds, slowly and in a sustainable way), I think I can speak to this. I agree that comparing different foods to determine which one will give you the most enjoyment for the calorie amount is smart. For example, I like to use Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise because even though it's less creamy, I can have way more (3/4 cup instead of 1 tbsp) for the same calories. Doing calorie comparisons like that is a great idea and has been very helpful for my weight loss. Some people would rather have a small amount of a caloric food rather than a larger portion of a lower calorie food, and people really have to figure out what works best for them. For me, I'd rather have the larger amount. On the other hand, I think it's dishonest that they showed such a tiny amount of ice cream because realistically (as was pointed out by other people), you can have a (slightly) larger ice cream cone than that for 60 calories. But I wouldn't say this is a particularly offensive advertisement. I've seen plenty of ads that describe foods as 'guilt-free', and *that* is offensive, because there should be no guilt associated with eating. People (men and women) should be calorie conscious, and I agree with the person who commented before to say that the hand in this advertisement isn't particularly feminine. I'll have to be calorie conscious my whole life in order to maintain my now-healthy weight, and that's fine. By being aware of calories and maintaining a healthy weight, you're dramatically decreasing your odds of developing most diseases, giving yourself more energy and better sleep, and increasing your life span. I don't think this advertisement is implying anything about a negative body image (except for the 'loved by lips and hips alike' which I admit places the emphasis on appearance rather than health) or an unhealthy relationship with food.

On the one hand, the targeting of struggling dieters is completely logical here. A non-nutritious luxury food with artificial sweetener has little appeal or value to almost anyone else, especially when the same brand has a high-calorie version of the same product next to it in the dairy case.

But the creepy thing about it is the appropriation of morally and religiously tinged language - "decadence" and "denial." It's amazing how frequently chocolate is sold with prose torn out of Dante's Inferno. There are plenty of perfectly sensible reasons to avoid sugar and fat, but none of them are moral. A conscious commitment to healthy diet and lifestyle choices should not be conflated with guilt and shame about one's body.

Still, it's a bit of a leap from preying on the insecurities of the weight-conscious to asserting that "every woman should be unhappy with or fearful of her body." The latter requires us to assume that every depiction of a vaguely feminized image stands in for "every woman," In this case, the most assertive visual element is not the gendered manicure (which could very well be on a male hand model); it's the repeated use of the text "60 calories," which very clearly stakes out the calorie-counter market as its turf.

Disagree- the ad isn't implying women SHOULD BE calorie-conscious because they are women-

it is making appeals based on the FACT that women ARE calorie-conscious because they are women.

If you'd like to indict the culture which eroticizes female thinness as a form of submission, focus on the depictions of the female body itself and the endless, fatphobic discussions of it.

Rather than duscus how this particular ad complies with cultural themes, why not use it to examine what those themes are? Critical theory doesn't go very far if you know what the results will be before you analyse the media.

This is almost as much fun as watching Jon Stewart.

Believe it or not, some people do quite willingly diet and wish to reduce their calorie intake. Many of these same people might just enjoy a reasonable portion of pudding and might like to know that such desert is not actually off-limits to them.
I normally like your analysis, but I think you're really reaching here.

Wait what?

Chocolate "treats" should be something to be ashamed of eating if we know better.

Because it's unhealthy.

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