‘The more you work out, the weaker his knees get!’, preaches a tank-top on Amazon. And this is among many of tops, fitness journals, bags and other gifts for people ‘passionate for exercise,’ which can be searched online. Countless online pop-ups urge us to try this or that product to reduce fat and stay healthy: products such as creams and body-shaping clothes. In such ways, we see businesses benefitting from people’s insecurities, and selling something far-fetched, perhaps even unattainable, with clever wordplay. When we first see examples of such adverts, we don’t normally pay them much notice, not because of ignorance, but due to their sheer abundance around us. Skinny and toned bodies are consistently projected as being attractive, and desirable. Such perceptions and presumptions are ingrained in our thoughts so strongly, that singularising them becomes almost impossible. They blend into a similarly insensitive domain of sales benefitting from the fears and insecurities of its target audience. In fact, it is quite rare that such adverts are called out.

One of the most talked about adverts promoting an unhealthy body image remains to be Protein World’s ‘Are you beach body ready?’ A successful campaign started against this advertisement, showing an extremely skinny woman. Even though it had to be taken down, the people responsible for the advert maintained an unapologetic stance, arguing that what they demonstrated was a ‘healthy’ body, and that they never meant to enforce strict fitness guidelines. However, the underlying message becomes more apparent than the one projected in this advert. Even when such body shaming policies may be out-rightly inappropriate and unethical for the considered audience, many companies are able to absolve themselves through similar excuses, leading people to forget and ignore the potential for harm caused by such adverts.

It is thus unfortunately not uncommon to see your personal thoughts latched onto in order to make a product more seem more popular or increase its demand. This applies to numerous adverts, for example, it is surprising how growing older is almost dreaded, thanks to  anti-ageing lotions, blemish removal creams, hair colours to remove the grey and so on. Even young boys and girls fall prey to these adverts, which promote ‘acne free’ skin, or covering blemishes with foundation. The entire make-up industry benefits from adverts exposing what ‘perfect’ skin should be like. Additionally, the obsession with fairer skin has left many women feeling insecure about not being ‘white enough,’ and therefore, ‘not beautiful enough’. This can change according to trends, for example at other times it is tanned skin that is praised and heralded as the ideal beauty standard.

Similarly, menstruation has suffered enormously from insensitive advertising. Many companies depict period blood as a blue liquid, shying away from accurate details.. Some businesses have shown positive change, for instance Bodyform was praised for its refreshingly honest period campaign. Whilst it is good that some companies have initiated change, showing period blood as red is just one of those things that should have been there all along. This is particularly true as depictions of murders on-screen benefit from ‘real’ blood, yet showing a biological phenomenon – periods – is somehow considered shameful. There are countless women even now, who slip and hide sanitary napkins like between the pages of a notebook, internalising this insecurity.

This links to the exploitation of other insecurities, for instance an effort to hide the perfectly natural ‘camel toe’ which may naturally appear when women were tight-fitting clothing. A company manufacturing panties, Camelflage, has the motto – ‘Stay sexy, stay private.’ Even though many women may choose to adopt this measure, enforcing this insecurity on thousands of women seems radically problematic.

In fact, it is not only the beauty industry which is built upon an ever increasing foundation of insecurity and lies. For example, Pakistan’s children’s growth started stunting, after convincing formulae milk adverts led mothers to stop breastfeeding the new-borns. Similarly, many health supplements that are advertised as safe can have harmful effects. In fact, the NHS warns that many popular herbal medicines may contain harmful levels of poisonous toxic metals. Often quality tests are not as stringent as they should be, followed by false conceptions presented in the sale and promotion of products. The abundance of such advertisements is startling, covering resources even as basic as water and air. Bottled drinking water is a huge industry, even in countries where tap water is proven to be safe to drink, and the amount of plastic which is wasted to make these bottles is another huge loss. Additionally, some online sites even sell  ‘pure oxygen’.

In fact, if water and air are up for inflammation, the tricks used by many ‘brands’ adhere to the same concept. Many adverts sell the idea of being ‘cool’, even when this comes at the expense of health. An example of this is the ever-increasing smoking industry. In the past, smoking by women was promoted as a ‘feminist’ act, and new documents have reported that appetite suppressants were added into tobacco to sell cigarettes as a weight control method to them.

It could be argued, however, that companies are simply  ‘giving people what they want,’ therefore fulfilling the purpose of advertising. Here, we need to ask ourselves why was it, in the first place, that we wanted to be ‘flawless’ or ‘perfect’? Or, if we take it further, how did we start defining the concept of perfection? There is always an underlying trigger to advertisements, playing on what we most desire. It can be observed, therefore, that adverts have flagellated and exploited people’s needs, wants, and thus, insecurities.  In such a competitive world, it is unsurprising that many companies want to put their product forward, to place it on a higher platform – more desirable then the alternatives. However, it would be healthier, more respectable and considerate, if advertising ceased to manipulate us in this way, and stopped telling people what they should be craving, what is right for them, and how they must behave, and look.