The Fine Print. I suggest you read it before breakfast.
I’m a fine print kind of girl. I really read it. On everything. I read the teeny tiny print on prescription drug inserts and the fine print of a store’s return policy when I buy sexy shoes. Now, I’m not always the nerd who sits there and reads the entire thing prior to the transaction. Sometimes, it’s after I actually purchase a product, but I have always found fine print to be a wealth of information. This is where you find critical information that often makes no sense and is usually related to a product’s warranty or performance and the consumer’s part in the big plan. Fine print tells you that stains on your mattress will void your warranty. Of course it’s absurd that a stain on the fabric has any correlation to a manufacturer’s defect in the actual product or in the performance of a mattress, but the fine print gives you fair warning that this is one excuse the manufacturer will use to avoid responsibility if their product is indeed a piece of crap. Fine print is where you learn that headache medicines may cause headaches and that the new ‘cure’ for heartburn may cause stomach upset. Fine print is the place to go for fun statements such as “Void Where Prohibited” and “Results not typical.”
So I just read the fine print in an advertisement that really irritated me and started me thinking of all of the similar ads/ campaigns for products that are misleading. Once again, it’s a new year and with that, the marketing world feeds on our vows to change. We’re currently bombarded with ad campaigns playing on our resolve to quit smoking, lose weight, live healthier lives, get fit, eat better, save money, and prepare for retirement.
Big buzz right now about ‘healthy hearts’, ‘lower cholesterol’, ‘boost your metabolism’, ‘green tea extract’, ‘whole grains’ and of course, the all important issue of obesity. No surprise that we are looking to products that promise to promote better health and aid us in our valiant efforts to stay fit and healthy. I guess I’d be naïve to think that things are any different in this area- advertisers have been issuing empty promises for decades (’new and improved’ anyone? ). But watch out! Advertisers are taking advantage of our desire to make healthier choices and may, in fact be making things worse for our bodies in the process.
Maybe you’ve notices these things as well, but in case you haven’t been reading all of the fine print I’ll share a few examples with you, including the one that set me off tonight.
I’m sure you’ve all heard that eating a bowl of Quaker Oats or Cheerios every day for 30 days will lower your cholesterol. Hooray! Studies show it works, but you could easily gain weight in exchange for the reduction in cholesterol levels. Huh? When you look at the fine print on the box, you see that you have to eat a mammoth bowl of oatmeal each day in order to get these benefits. To be specific, the ‘heart healthy’ serving is actually 1.5 servings. Depending on how you like your oatmeal, this could easily add 200 calories per day. Over 30 days, that’s going to add up. Same scenario with the Cheerios. In addition, both brands suggest that their cereal is ‘part of a balanced breakfast’, so don’t forget to add the calories from the berries or banana you will be scarfing down as well.
I love the cold cereal brands which claim that by replacing 2 meals each day for 2 weeks with the cereal will result in a 6 lb weight loss. A serving of cereal is about 110 calories, plus the milk. When is the last time that 2/3 of your daily caloric intake was less than 300 calories? I’m not a doctor, I’m not even good at the whole dieting thing but I assure you that this will truly lead to weight loss… if you don’t pass out from hunger before the two weeks are up. The magic isn’t in the Special K or Smart Start. It’s in the food deprivation aspect. I think it’s safe to say that you could achieve the same results on the Cocoa Pebbles Diet if you used the same guidelines. Actually, I wonder how many boxes of cereal Kelloggs would sell if they advertised “Lose weight with the Coco Pebbles Diet!”
I recently bought my husband a new shampoo that promises “30% thicker looking hair immediately”. What 30-something guy doesn’t want that? At home, fine print later told me that this is “when followed by our full and thick styling gel”.
PowerAde has a flavored water out there. It’s called Optimum or something and is very good. Similar to Gatorade’s Propel Fitness Water. Actually, they both rock my socks. I have no problem with the water, but I did find something hilarious in the fine print. The Optimum bottle states that it is “preferred unanimously by tasters over Gatorade’s Propel*”. If you follow the asterisk, the fine print on the back adds, “*preferred unanimously among those who had a preference”.
And now I get to the lovely ad I saw tonight. Minute Maid Heartwise Orange Juice. Drinking this each day, Minute Maid claims, will lower your cholesterol. Sounds good. Fine print adds that this is based on adding an 8 once glass (with a meal) of the juice twice per day to your diet. Who drinks 16 ounces of OJ every day? Anyone who watches their calories will tell you that this is a significant (280 calories) increase in your daily intake. Add that to the additional calories from the oatmeal and we’re looking at adding 480 calories per day to our diet… in order to be healthier. That could result in an average gain of 50.1lbs over a 12 month period. Yikes! That doesn’t sound healthy.
So, next time you’re washing down your bucket of oatmeal with a jug of OJ while pondering why your hair doesn’t look any thicker than it did before you washed it and trying to decide whether or not you are a person who has a preference, you may want to read the fine print. The good news is that I have yet to find any find print or disclaimers on broccoli.
-please don’t forget to read my disclaimer on this one folks. You can find it in the ‘About’ section.
Hand- Slaps.
janedavis
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