Ever since I upgraded my cable account from 35 to 94 channels in order to bring down my monthly TV/Internet/telephone bill to half of what I used to pay (don't ask -- the telecom industry is perverse like that), I've been watching slightly more TV than I used to. I'm sure it's temporary though, mostly because the ubiquitous commercials are driving me insane.
Most of them are simply stupid, many are insulting my intelligence (such as the countless attempts to convince parents that sugar bombs are healthy for their children), but a couple are annoying to the point of causing physical pain.
The most painful ones, at the moment, are for probiotic yoghurt. They are ubiquitous, they are broadcast at painfully brief intervals, and some of them are strangely bizarre.
Like the one that starts with the voice-over announcing "mothers talk to their daughters about digestive problems", or the other one in which several women talk about how bloated they are all the time. I may not be able to fully understand this as I am a member of the male species, but it seems to be a somewhat unusual behaviour, and seeing women talking about digestive problems and being bloated in quick succession at 5-minute intervals minutes may fundamentally change my entire perception of women.
(All of the following links lead to German pages -- sorry.)
The German author Udo Pollmer has written a number of books (e.g. this one) on how so-called "healthy" food isn't healthy at all. Probiotic yoghurt features prominently in them, primarily as an example of successful marketing for essentially useless products (Actimel yoghurt, for example recently won the dubious honour of receiving a prize for the emptiest advertising promise of the year).
Pollmer claims that not only do these yoghurts not have any positive effects on your immune system, they may actually be harmful. The bacteria in these yoghurts are unable to survive in the consumer's intestines and have to constantly be refilled, but if you keep doing that, they will suppress your own bacteria and can thus weaken, rather than strengthen your immune system.
The provenance of the bacteria in these yoghurts is similarly dubious; obviously, they must be coming from the same place where they are supposed to go to. Once you get over the initial shock of this realisation, please remember that when it comes to your intestines and immune system, your own bacteria are always preferable to someone else's.
Of course the bloated women are unlikely to talk about yoghurt "made from finest excrement", but basically that's what it is, and I guess there may be some conscious or unconscious connection to the rotten advertisements for the product.
Udo Pollmer: Prost Mahlzeit! Krank durch gesunde Ernährung. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2001.
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danke für die Formulierung "obviously, they must be coming from the same place where they are supposed to go to" - that made my day.
In America we women are taught, from the moment we are first old enough to read women's magazines, that no man will ever like us if we use the word "bloated" in his presence. I think we've all gotten the idea by now!
The television ads for Activia yogurt, which I believe is the equivalent of Actimel, usually feature Jamie Lee Curtis, and she uses the words "irregular" and "irregularity."
See: http://tinyurl.com/cpsgaj
I have never had any inclination to try this stuff, and after reading your very entertaining post, am sure I never will.
In Belgium, they've discovered bloated men! It was only a matter of time until the PR people said, wait a minute, let's sell the stuff to the other half, too. Watch out for bloated cats and dogs ....