Media Monday: Skinny Girl Cocktails

Submitted by TEPF Volunteer

 

It is understandable that a grown, adult woman may reach for a drink at the end of a hard day or in celebration of some monumental event.  Drinking is meant to be a social event and in moderation is typically not detrimental to one’s health.  However, Skinny Girl cocktails have come up with a diet drink with a logo of a woman who nears the unrealistic proportions of Barbie and a slogan of “Drink like a lady.”  I first noticed the ad after paying more attention to the ads in Cosmopolitan (the free online publication) on August 28th.  I also have seen the Skinny Girl cocktails in the liquor stores.   The target audience is obviously for women of age, particularly women who may be self conscious of their body shape or trying to lose or maintain weight, which is a large percentage of woman in today’s society.  I followed the ad to the companies’ Facebook page to find a depiction of a woman wearing pearls and perfectly coifed hair, pulled together and drinking like a lady.  The site also provides a guide of how to act like a lady which gives advice such as sensible shoes being five inch stilettos. The product does seem appealing because it gives off the idea that if you drink the cocktail you will be fun, sexy, and, well, a lady. 

 

However, in my humble opinion, diet foods have no room in one’s pantry.  All foods can fit into a diet with moderation and balance.  The fact that this drink is low-calorie also brings up the suggestion that drinking more is just fine because of the fewer calories per drink which may actually lead some to drink more than they otherwise would.  The term ‘skinny’ alone brings up images of super thin and unhealthy people.  But this company uses it as if ‘skinny’ is the ideal and the only way women can be fun, sexy and ladies, which is not true.  Women come in every shape and size, and I know it may be cliché, but true beauty comes from within. Their image of a woman with unrealistic curves may set an unrealistic ideal for women.  I would like to see this company first of all remove the word skinny girl and perhaps use real girls instead.  Second, I would like to see the image of the woman with the stick thin legs and large chest removed and replaced by perhaps a fuller figured woman or even better, no image at all in which can potentially try to mirror. By all means women deserve to have a cocktail but not one telling them they have to be skinny to be a lady.