This is the original Protein World ad.
And this is one of a number of re-faced images.
You guessed it, I like the second one much better.
Really enjoying seeing the creative ways women around the world are messing with the original ad.
Also love the slogan I’m seeing: ‘How to be beach body ready – 1. Have a body. 2. Take it to the beach’.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett expressed the issue perfectly in a piece in The Guardian titled ‘Am I beach body ready? Advertisers, that’s none of your business’:
Is your body, the incredibly complex, awe-inspiring physical vessel that carts around your brain, and equipment for breathing, excreting, digesting and so much more, and is perhaps even growing new life within it, currently at a level of slimness determined as attractive according to western notions of female beauty such that it can be exposed to fellow human beings on the beach without causing them unnecessary trauma?
My colleague Caitlin Roper highlighted on twitter how only certain bodies are deemed to be fit and healthy.
In response to the backlash, Protein World publicly mocked its critics, saying they were fat and insecure. Buzzfeed (as well as providing a beautify gallery of other doctored billboards) records Protein World’s contemptuous responses here.
Protein World’s complete failure to demonstrate any corporate social responsibility, let alone basic civility, can only help boost signatures on this Change.org petition which already has over 36,000 signatures. Add your name today. Remove ‘Are you beach body ready advertisements’
See also: ‘Why I don’t want to be a “fit mum” anymore’, Huff Post.
