Them's Fightin' Words

It seems the more we “advance” as a species, the better marketers, advertisers and the media get at dialing our insecurities up to the point where we will buy anything to make other people love us.

We’re force-fed the idea that if we’re too fat, too thin, too ugly, have bad skin, have hair that isn’t shiny, strong and UV resistant, have bad teeth, drive the wrong car, etc. society will never accept us.

Don’t, whatever anyone says, ever just be yourself. Rather spend your life chasing an unobtainable ideal, a photoshopped billboard-ready version of reality that you’ll sink millions into trying to achieve. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they force this bullshit on us or the fact that we lap it up so readily.

The weight-loss industry is at the forefront of this kind of thinking and to a certain extent it’s justified because of the health benefits of keeping your weight down. But it gets taken to ugly extremes in instances like the video I’m about to show you.

The latest craze in weight-loss in the States is something they call “The K-E Diet”, which involves inserting a rubber tube through your nose and into your stomach. You are then “fed” a high protein and high fat liquid diet for 10 days during which time you can lose as much as 20 pounds (9kgs).

I’ll let the video below explain the rest:

Here’s a breakdown of the not-so-subtle manipulation that’s going on in this video:

• Open on a beach shot, immediately conjuring mental images of bronzed beauties sculpted to perfection and triggering our “must-get-thin-for-the-beach” reflex.
• Introduce Doctor Dickhead. See all those qualifications behind him? Yeah, they’re probably all bullshit, they’re just trying to make us think he’s legit.
• “This program has been used in Europe for over 100 000 times”? That’s right, go right ahead and butcher the Kings English, atta boy. I know village drunks who are more articulate.
• He promises to go on the diet himself so we can see the results, which we never see.
• “It’s imperative that you lose weight at all costs” – even if it results in the unfortunate side-effect of DEATH

There is one, and only one instance where I’d let someone thread a rubber tube through my nose and into my stomach and that’s if I was dying.

If you want to lose 20 pounds so desperately how about hitting the gym and cutting down on the chocolates and cheeseburgers?

Because I can pretty much guarantee you this – the people who choose to go on this “diet” will put those 20 pounds back on in the 10 days after the tube comes out.

If you let insecurity and desperation rule over level-headedness and the willpower we have inside us all to change, you will never be content.

-ST