I was standing in line at the grocery store irritated about all of the magazine covers that showed diets just like the month before that and the month before that. It hit me suddenly just how ridiculous it is to believe that these diets work if there is a new one (or three) on the cover of almost every women’s magazine every month. I started to wonder just how many weight loss messages I would received if (heavens forfend) I actually subscribed to one of these magazines for a year.
I chose Self magazine and a quick trip to Googleland got me all of the covers for 2010. (I was going to post the covers here but they just irritated me way too much so I’m not.) Here’s what I could have accomplished in 2010 according to the cover of Self Magazine.
- Peeled off major pounds with the food lovers diet
- Become slimmer every day with the no gym workout
- firmed up for free with 6 at-home tips
- Learned to eat like Carrie Underwood
- Achieved a sexy stomach
- Learned to eat like Hayden Panetteire
- Lost weight in 3 easy ways
- Been happy and healthy at any size (this is on the same cover as “lose weight 3 easy ways and “firm up for free”)
- Slimmed down for spring
- Achieved a flat stomach with their proven plan (Hmmm, this word – proven- I do not think it means what you think it means)
- Eaten the superfood that slenderizes while I snack
- Learned 20 best foods for weight loss
- Achieved flat abs, lean legs and amazing arms between April 1st and May 1st
- Learned the 50 best foods for beating sneaky pounds (apparently too sneaky for the 20 best foods for weight loss)
- Learned 15 delicious food that fight fat (apparently different that the best foods for weight loss or the 50 best foods for beating sneaky pounds)
- Achieved flat abs and lost 9 pounds by revving my body’s natural fat burning ability. (9 pounds. not 8, not 10, 9.)
- Learned what to eat to get a flat belly
- Dropped 400 calories without noticing
- Learned the fastest shape up ever – burning 10 calories in 10 minutes
- Learned 242 ways to be slim, gorgeous and healthy
- Achieved flat abs in 4 minutes
- Learned the super market cheat sheet to just shop, eat and lose weight
- learned the sexy body secret to a flatter tummy
- Learned the single best workout (which makes me wonder why they keep publishing more workouts)
- Lose 8 pounds in thirty days (8 pounds. not 7, not 9, 8.)
- Burn 200 calories without working out
- Learned the #1 way to burn fat (which makes me wonder why they keep publishing more ways to burn fat)
- Become a happy healthy eater
- Achieved leaner legs and a tighter tush in 6 like-magic moves
- Learned 231 tips for a sexier, fitter me
- Learned the simplest slim down (makes me wonder why they keep publishing other ways to slim down
- Learned to Eat up, Lose Weight like 6 other women
- Lose weight without trying with my weight loss grocery list (apparently different from the 25, 50, 15 food and the super market cheat sheet)
- Stay slim all winter
This is ridiculous. They’ve been publishing these same types of stories once per month since January 1979. Based on my year that means they’ve published about 1152 ways to be skinny, and they are just one of many magazines doing this. They are selling millions of magazines by playing to the omgdeathfatiscomingforusanditwillgiveuscankles terror, and since Self claims a circulation of 1,486,992 and a total audience of 5,541,000 readers, according to its corporate media kit, the marketing appears to be working (never mind that the diets are not.)
Three things occurred to me pretty quickly:
- If this stuff actually worked then they would be out of the business of selling magazines. Would you buy a magazine if it told you every month that it had a new and exciting say to teach you to be 6 inches taller, knowing that it had been giving that same advice without success for 32 years? How many times can the find “The Single Best Workout” and if they have, why bother publishing more workouts, just keep posting that one, as it is the single best.
- I think that it is highly unethical to tell people to try intentional weight loss without being clear that it fails 95% of the time. I think that telling people that intentional weight loss is “easy” should probably be punishable by death.
- I think it’s time to demand a little more from our reading material than superlatives, hyperbole and bullshit.
“Become a happy healthy eater”
Isn’t this just really more emotional eating? (just joking here)
So true. So true!! You are completely brilliant.
Wouldn’t it be cool if they were obliged to publish a disclaimer at the beginning of every weight loss article (sort of like the disclaimer you see when watching stunt drivers do amazing things that no sane driver would ever consider doing, especially on the highway while going to work, or on a city street where parents are dropping their kids off for school)?
Here’s a suggestion for a diet disclaimer, just off the top of my head:
“Warning: You may temporarily lose some weight on this diet, but be advised that your chances of regaining the weight lost, and gaining further weight are in the vicinity of 95%. Dieting is known to cause depression, a lack of self-worth, yo-yo dieting syndrome, heart problems and a host of other undesirable conditions, both mental and physical. This magazine accepts no responsibility for any undesired side-effects related to the diet described herein.”
That was a “type as you go” suggestion. I’m sure your readers have many more!
I’ve written about this several times. It’s so annoying. My solution: to stop reading the crazy magazines! I don’t think Self is as psycho as some…where one page they tell you to feel good at any size…lose weight on the next page…and a ooey gooey chocolate cake recipe on the next!
This is one of my biggest pet peeves! lol Glad to see someone quantify it a bit: Self should be ashamed. But they are selling magazines…
Great post, as always,
Susie
Hi Susie,
You make a really good point – I didn’t even touch on the juxtaposition of “be thin” with all of the recipes that they have. Just sad.
~Ragen
I don’t buy women’s magazines – don’t see the point. Their health articles offend me by their woo quotient and the models on the front cover have been so photoshopped they scare me.
But I’m sorry to say that I’ve just discovered a magazine supplement on my bookshelf that I bought about 18 months ago. It offers me a full month’s program for getting into shape. The reason it’s tossed where I can’t see it is that it’s useless. In order to eat all the planned menus, I would have to have a full kitchen at work to prepare my lunch, and have a kitchen at home filled with exotic ingredients. I love cooking! But even for a reasonable home cook, there are limits.
I think that’s what they’re counting on.
Fortunately, I have changed since I spent money on that thing and I will never buy such a thing again.
Hi Chloe,
I’m so with you – I just think that with so many scientists trying to work on how to make everyone thin and failing miserably, it’s pretty doubtful that the answer is in a magazine. I can’t imagine giving them any money.
~Ragen
You are a genius. I am now, literally, your biggest fan. Thanks.
Thank you, and I totally love this reply
~Ragen
@susiekline, I strongly believe they should not be ashamed. It’s fine if you want to disagree with these magazine but I for one am never going to stop reading them. I love Self and I agree that there are too many weightloss pages that I just ignore but in between them is actually some good content.
Hi Ashley,
I completely respect your right to like the magazines and want to read them. To me the fact that they constantly print misleading health information in an effort to make women feel bad enough about themselves that they buy the magazine negates any good information that they might print. I agree with Susie that they should be ashamed of using this type of marketing ploy to sell magazines and I feel that saying Self if a good magazine except for the misleading weight loss pages (and 2-3 mentions on the cover every month) is kind of like saying “He’s a nice guy, except that he punches people in the face.” I completely get that there are more perspectives out there than mine, but that’s where I’m coming from. Thanks for the comment.
~Ragen
I could totally feel my blood pressure rising and my anxiety level increasing as I went down the list and by the end I did kind of want to scream.
It’s eye-opening to think that the general angsty feeling gets internalized and just hovers around from reading all that stuff on a smaller level day-to-day.
Great post!
Hi Melissa,
Glad that you liked the post – sorry that it raised your anxiety! I really do think it’s worth taking a look at the steady stream of messages that we get (however subconsciously) all the time.
~Ragen
The most compelling correlation between the FALSE claims that fat people are un-healthy e.g. high blood pressure, and depression is because we have to see these “MAG RAGS” every where we go. I loved BBW and More. When ever I was lucky enough to see them on the magazine rack I took several copies and put them on top of the Maxim’s, Cosmos, and Vogues. It was stealthy and dastardly but I wanted other people to have the chance to see other images too. Unfortunately, those are no longer to be found. Talk about a weight loss…:-(
I adore you. What an awesome thing to do – it’s the perfect protest, you didn’t vandalize the magazines you just changed their position. Brilliant.
~Ragen
I used to buy that crap and read it, thinking if I just found the right make-up tips, I’d finally be good at using make-up and look better wearing it. After submitting to one of those mall department store makeovers (the kind where they try to sell you a bunch of stuff that will never make you happy), I finally realized that I don’t like how I look in make-up, and that’s okay.
Now my 9yo daughter raises her eyebrows at those magazines, because I’ve shown her that only a computer can make images like these, then she turns around to look at the candy. I consider that healthier.
You are awesome! I love that you are raising your daughter to understand the truth about those magazines from such a young age.
~Ragen
I realized there was a crapton of that stuff out there, but I never realized just how big a crapton was until you posted this. The only time I’ve ever bothered with magazines of any sort is when I’m severely bored waiting for a plane, and that’s only once a year. Now that The Hubster has an eReader, I fully plan on taking that handy contraption with me on my trip in 3 weeks. I basically just ignore the mags on the shelf at the store now, because they simply don’t interest me any more, especially now that I have discovered that as long as my numbers are good, I’m good. I have no need, or time for that matter, for such things as massively photoshopped models, or make-up tips since I rarely wear any. It’s possible that they have some decent articles on other things, but 1) I don’t want to have to flip through the endless ads for things I don’t need or even want, 2) I don’t want to “accidentally” expose myself to harmful messages that I’ve tried to purge from my life, 3) I don’t want them to think it’s ok to print the crap that they do, so they aren’t gonna get my money.
I feel the exact same way. I seriously doubt that there are articles about anything in those magazines that I couldn’t just as easily find on Google without having to go through the litany of created to make me feel bad about myself crap.
~Ragen
Ok, for some reason the subscription to the comments via email (which I’ve come to love) isn’t working for me, so I’m going to try again. Please forgive the nonsensical comment.
‘Slenderize’? Is that anything like tenderize?
I used to buy magazines but I didn’t like the make-up because I don’t wear it. Then I didn’t like the fashion, and it wouldn’t fit me anyway. Then I didn’t like the sex tips because they sound a little desperate and unrealistic for the most part and are all about how a woman has to constantly learn and adapt to remain interesting for her man. Then I objected to the ‘have it all do it all still feel like a failure!!!!’ articles. That left, what, maybe four pages of articles about other lady business and a shedload of adverts, and I don’t fee like paying £5 for that.
I reckon though, if you started a magazine and talked endlessly about how we should all be taller, within a year there would be woman wearing foot-tall heels and booking appointments to have their legs lengthened.
Absolutely – I found it really hard to stick with just the diet stuff since the fashion and sex tips were so prevalent as well. You are probably right about the height thing. You can already have surgery to get your toes shortened, so why not get your legs lengthened? Maybe we can start a trend of really long legs with really short toes…
Toes shortened?! Why didn’t you say so? I bet I could lose SEVERAL OUNCES that way!!
It’s to the point now that when I am in the check out line I avert my eyes entirely. I sometimes even have a conversation with someone in line. It is amazing the things you can learn when you talk to people. I think we’re losing touch with reality by not having real conversations and developing real relationships. So much mass marketing with almost no true human values attached to it cannot be good for anyone.
There is one magazine that I see repeatedly that is, in my opinion, a ‘worst offender.’ It is Woman’s World, and the biggest headline on every single issue is a weight loss tip (seriously, go check out Google images.)
I don’t have the money, time, or patience for it, but I wonder how many issues you would have to buy to find two articles with advice that completely contradicts each other. My guess is that it actually wouldn’t take that many mags. It’s disgusting.