Skippy commerical

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noni
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Skippy commerical

Post by noni » Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:04 pm

I'm confused.

I haven't watched regular TV in years, but just recently upon entering the 21st century, I got something similar to cable, and was able to view a Skippy peanut butter commercial using a chubby child actor eating a big glob of peanut butter out of a large jar, as if this is a good thing.

On one hand, this is what a lot of children look like today, but there is this problem of obese children with health concerns.

On the other hand, we hate the media for all the ultra thin models, actresses, etc., shoved down our throat, showing us what we should look like. Hence my confusion.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
"Never go back for seconds. Get it all the first time." - Garfield

Desert Rat
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Post by Desert Rat » Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:40 pm

I've noticed that advertisers are great at sending false signals - such as ultra-thin models slamming down 1,500 calorie fast-food meals (implying that the "beautiful people" eat that stuff and stay thin so you can too).

Not food related, but as a woman "of a certain age" it really annoys me when advertisers use teen-aged models to sell wrinkle cream.

noni
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Post by noni » Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:58 pm

Desert Rat, maybe those "teenagers" are really in their fifties, and the wrinkle cream is actually doing its job! lol
"Never go back for seconds. Get it all the first time." - Garfield

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 5:31 am

Advertisers use what sells and it's pretty much always emotion. The easily influenced audience tends to like the implication of permissiveness and/or a bit of either defiance or naughtiness. Remember the burger commercials with a beautiful woman taking bites of a huge hamburger and having ketchup drip on her shirt? Guys watching across the way? No one was selling health and vitality there.

I guess the peanut butter boy emphasizes the exuberance and naughtiness of kids full of pleasure over the experience of the food. Just about everyone has that memory. Don't children deserve that kind of delight? the commercial implies.

The promoters of such images IMHO are either fools or rogues.
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ladybird30
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Post by ladybird30 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 2:50 am

Interesting take Oolala (I haven't seen the ad). Children don't just deserve pleasure, as the ad implies, they also deserve to grow up with healthy bodies.
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oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:59 am

I completely agree; the food manufacturers are willing to stick their heads in the sand and say it's the responsibility of parents while they do everything in their power to make the food as seductive as they can get away with and then the marketers and advertisers play on the emotion of adults who will buy the peanut butter, not to mention the emotion of kids AND their stamina in pestering parents. And it works enough to have gotten the food manufacturers incredible profits and us where we are.

The opposition doesn't have near the advertising budget. :cry:
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
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1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

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noni
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Post by noni » Mon Mar 05, 2018 3:28 pm

Oolala, I would never let my kids do what that child in the ad was doing: sitting in a chair with a big jar of peanut butter and dipping his celery, or whatever, into it, and looking like 'no holds barred'. I'm sure they'd love to, though!

I get from my son how food in his friends' homes are free to eat without limits, and sometimes the food is healthy although calorific. I told him they are setting themselves up for trouble later in life with these continual eating habits. They are slender now, because they are very active in sports, but then life happens.
"Never go back for seconds. Get it all the first time." - Garfield

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Tue Mar 06, 2018 4:33 pm

I'm sure you don't, but there's not much chance that we wouldn't have gotten to a nation of 66+% overweight or obese unless parents were allowing some serious overeating. Maybe not out of the jar, but similar. One of the hard things is that naturally thin kids often do similar things. It makes people think it's part of childhood. I don't think you'd see parents in slim societies let their kids do it, either.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
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1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
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ladybird30
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Post by ladybird30 » Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:21 pm

I don't remember anyone eating like that from my childhood in the 50s and 60s.

When I was in primary (grade) school, I remember one fat girl. One child who stood out among the hundreds of my contemporaries. Now almost all those thin children are overweight.
Three meals a day - not too little not too much, but just right

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:32 am

No, but I'd bet we ate more liberally than the previous generation. It's escalating every generation because the baseline goes up as each generation will likely be a little more permissive than the previous one, with the increased food supply, and concurrent increase of manufactured, low -satiety food in response. The number of products on supermarket shelves has grown to 45,000! Marketers like to get them young. They're like robots: they just look at the numbers and go from there. I hate to sound like an alarmist but the books of the last ten years on the fast food and convenience food industries are chilling. They were/are so incredibly calculating!

Anyway, this is getting far afield. Short answer: I think it's a bad idea to use such images to market food, especially a product with added sugar. I certainly was a lot more likely (as an adult!) to eat Skippy and any counterparts in multiple spoonfuls out of the jar, but be much more subdued with the peanuts-only stuff. (I'm down to keeping only unshelled peanuts in the house now, preferably unsalted.) I guess we need a group similar to MADD. Maybe MASS? Moms Against Sugar Seduction. (No offense to fathers; I'm just riffing on the organization that already exists.)
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

jenji
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Post by jenji » Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:01 pm

I haven't seen it. I get what you are saying - it's nice to see actors of all body types getting work. But what a message for kids... to eat it with a spoon.

I am not a big pb eater, but I can see that the sugar in Skippy could make it very attractive and dessert-like. I know that lots of people eat PB this way, including some of my family, but it grosses me out.

In general, I am of the opinion that any food with an ad campaign is bad for you. There is no ad campaign for cabbage. LOL
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Larkspur
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Post by Larkspur » Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:45 pm

LOL Jen :)

I think it's presenting a child that reminds parents of their own kid.

As far as kids go, I think the change in activity has been a factor. I don't think small bursts do much toward managing weight, but that low-grade all day activity really does. We forget that people, especially young people, can and do eat loads without getting fat if the other factors are in place.

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Octavia
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Post by Octavia » Fri Apr 13, 2018 3:21 pm

So funny to see a Skippy advert popping up at the bottom of this discussion!

I haven’t seen the ad, but I think the aspect of eating peanut butter with a spoon is the real shocker here! It’s as if they are trying to normalise and legitimise that behaviour. And maybe subliminally reassure parents that chubby is normal, too (I’m assuming the child is more than just mildly chubby!) Very insidious.

My heart goes out to the child, though - being the focus of debate.

I love peanut butter but I’d be sick if you made me eat it off a spoon!

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:16 pm

I think you hit such an important point by saying the ad legitimizes the behavior. It's not inventing it, but recognizing that it happens, and rather than discouraging it and guiding better behavior, it's saying it's ok. I can't imagine that tack in a slim culture.

It reminds me of scenes that have become more common in sitcoms of women (all thin, of course) eating out of containers of ice cream because of disturbing events beforehand. Or sometimes just because.

I read a novel recently in which scene after scene included eating in random ways of mostly modern manufactured foods as a backdrop of the other actions. It was written in the late '80's. This seemed to emphasize the youth and freedom of the lifestyle of the characters. I just saw it as misdirection!

It's interesting to me that in slim cultures, there doesn't seem to be any rebelliousness by young people against the restrictions of meal-based eating. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough, but in reading about French female students' shock at the overeating, over-drinking habits of young English college students, there wasn't any sense of their thinking, "Oh, how cool! No one telling me what I can and can't do!" Nor "Wow, it's so much more fun to eat too much and get really drunk!"
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

ladybird30
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Post by ladybird30 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 1:05 am

Yes, it has often struck me how US popular culture is full of references to eating really large quantities of fast and processed food (eg the great big bowl of popcorn while watching a game on TV).

Traditional western culture on the other hand had strictures against gluttony as well as fasting days and other unwritten rules regulating eating times and places.
Three meals a day - not too little not too much, but just right

GabbyGirl2
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Re: Skippy commerical

Post by GabbyGirl2 » Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:10 pm

I saw another Skippy commercial earlier today. They had replaced the little pudgy boy with a full-grown slim woman, digging her celery stick into the jar of Skippy. At least that commercial wasn't aimed at kids.

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