New Gillette Ad Celebrates Obesity

Gillette — a company once known for selling razors — has moved on from its war on men to something that is supposed to be more positive:

Go out there and slay the day 💪🏼 📸 Glitter + Lazers pic.twitter.com/cIc0R3JfpR

— Gillette Venus (@GilletteVenus) April 3, 2019

My colleague Deb Heine posted this tweet on our Live Blog today and my first reaction was that the sentiment here is horribly irresponsible.

I shared my anecdotal experience with weight in response, explaining that I’ve always fluctuated and whenever I’m even a little overweight I feel awful.

What is irresponsible about the ad is that it completely eschews science and overwhelming medical evidence linking obesity to a host of serious health consequences.

Belly fat is pretty much evidence of a heart attack waiting to happen for both men and women.

“Slay” may have been the worst word choice in the history of advertising, as the woman in the ad may very well be killing herself:

Obesity substantially increases the risk of several major cancers in women, especially postmenopausal breast cancer and endometrial cancer. Overweight and obesity are associated with elevated mortality from all causes in both men and women, and the risk of death rises with increasing weight.

The bitter — and dangerous — irony here is that the science is being ignored by the very people who continually accuse their political opposites of being anti-science.