Do you know how sometimes you see/hear something that keeps bothering you?
Today that happened to me. Somebody said something crucially wrong.
I am not talking about private people saying stupid things to each other nor about what goes on in the comments section of online newspapers. I saw an ad of sorts that made my stomach twist and here’s why.
If you have something important to say, you should really take the time to think what you are saying to whom, why and how. You might also have to take into consideration who says it, when and where but in this case those are less important. If you don’t, however, follow this guideline, then you are in real danger of being misunderstood as well as not reaching your goal(s).
Coming back to this case, in the last days, I have seen several times someone promoting on my Facebook feed some weight loss support group. Nothing about it seemed overly professional nor official, but since they addressed a very sensitive subject and did it so badly (in my opinion), I just couldn’t keep ignoring it though I really dislike conflicts. It was too important to ignore.
The ad itself was supposed to be playful, I guess, and followed a trending build-up where an illustration was used of different body shapes in different colours with comments of target weight loss in kilograms and people were invited to answer with a colour. Perhaps the author of the ad was smart enough to strategize to gather feedback about their target group this way? Perhaps it was a tool to increase the popularity and hence the visibility of the post this way. I personally suspect however that the author just didn’t know much about professional communication. I do however want to believe that the ad author had good intentions and wanted to invite people to support each other with getting in shape and not just lose as much weight as humanly possible while still remaining alive.
Here’s the ad itself:
I saw several problems with the chosen approach. The smaller one was that just a number of kilograms that someone wants to lose doesn’t say much without context. At least not about how realistic are the goals. It is however simplistic enough for most people to grasp. A lot less sexy but much more accurate metric to talk about would be BMI – body mass index, but then everyone should have the same, healthy target. They might just have different starting BMIs but that would factor in also their height.
The second problem that I saw was that far from everyone wants to shout on social media that they are not happy with their bodies and exactly how unhappy they are and how many extra kilos (they think) they have. Yes, some people had no problem just putting it out there, but only a few. Even when colours were used for codes. A tag like #livinghealthy might have worked better to gain traction.
The biggest issue and the one that made me react publicly, was the image used in the ad. Two of the body shapes depicted were clearly of overweight people, but one was completely healthy and normal looking and one looked even anorectic and still came with a tag of wanting to lose up to 5kg. It seemed to put a very dangerous message out there for often already vulnerable target group. Eating disorders are more common than many think and often start from the smallest thing – an insult in childhood or why not a picture that seems to say “you can never be skinny enough”!? Especially since people with eating disorders already see themselves always as too big. But that is their disease talking. We should not feed their fears and fuel their disease. I don’t claim to be the expert of this topic. I don’t have an eating disorder though I have never been skinny or at least never felt skinny. I have however felt good about myself and am in peace with my body most days. But the illustrations used were so extreme that it looked like taking off another five kilos would cause bodies to shut down, starting with reproductive organs if those hadn’t already done so. But see for yourself.
I will also show you my reply which was written on the high of my emotion in a rush so perhaps it could have been better. I see myself now that an extra word has found its way there, but perhaps it will be forgiven. I will however explain further why I chose the other words. You already know what I wanted to say and why. I expected that I might draw on myself someone’s anger, but it seemed important enough. As a nice surprise I found supporters first.
Full text:
Hey! I don’t want to rain on your parade here because I understand that a lot of people struggle with weight issues but i have seen this ad a few times right now and this image really bothers me. The first body shape looks anorectic. The second normal. It seems dangerous to hint that people with such figures should still aim to lose weight. I believe that you are trying to do something good as you call it a support group but please consider sending healthier messages.
I started with a colourful saying. This might result in people perceiving my response as sarcastic. Perhaps it was too a little bit, but mostly it came from the heart. I could have probably started more neutrally like I would recommend that you changed… or put it in a positive way like I would like to help you improve the ad. I could also have gone with a more passive/cautionary approach like If I were you, I would have done… or an apologetic approach like I don’t want to offend you/I am sorry to say this… but we can never really control anyway how we will be understood. We can only do our best based on what we know about our audience. I knew nothing and risked it.
As you see, I decided to go with my honest but polite opinion and softened my colourful start with expressing that I believe the author is addressing an important issue (meaning doing good work), but a part of how it is done is influencing me personally negatively (I message). I explained what I perceive, using words like “looks” instead of pushing my opinions as facts (vs is anorectic). I could have improved it with even more I messages to make it clear this is just my perspective. “It seems” is another way of describing possible perception. “Hint” is used because it doesn’t say anywhere in words that someone should do something or someone is overweight. But now we are wandering to the territory of semiotics. I expressed benefit of the doubt from my side and faith in good will by the author to help him/her keep an open mind towards my motivation (wanting to help, looking for greater good) and this was not in order to manipulate someone to get what I personally want. I also wanted to let them know that they are still in charge and this is just a recommendation (“please consider”) instead of, for example, just saying bluntly “take it down” or “this is crap and has to be fixed”.
How would you have responded? Or better yet, how would you have done the ad itself?