Breastfeeding commercial!
Down in Virigina, they've developed a pro-breastfeeding commercial with a twist, the focus is on mom losing weight! It's an innovative way to reach moms but does it go too far? For one thing, weight loss is no guarantee with breastfeeding. Though it's a fact that breastfeeding burns about 500 calories a day, it doesn't translate into dropping pounds for all women. Some of us hang onto those pounds until our babies are weaned, some of us keep them for the next pregnancy! Secondly, does this play too much into our "thin is best" culture? What's wrong with carrying a little extra weight? Recent studies seem to show that a little extra weight is fine - that it's cardiovascular health that is most important when figuring out health and longevity.
Watch the commercial and let me know what you think!
posted by milkfacemama @ 5:25 PM
3 Comments:
While I think the idea of commercials for breastfeeding is great and much better than the little caption "breastfeeding is best" on formula commercials, I think there will be a lot of disappointed women out there if they think nursing is the key to weightloss. For me, the hormones associated with nursing made me hungrier than in pregnancy and I didn't lose weight til nursing was all done. If I were focussed on weightloss, I would actually wean earlier rather than later. I think there are many other things that a breastfeeding commercial can focus on like the close nursing relationship, health of the baby, convenience of not having to deal with bottles etc. But I definitely like the idea that someone is promoting breastfeeding in a place you usually only see formula commercials!
Oh so torn. As an avid breastfeeding mother and promoter of the “lovely art” I think that anything that gets woman nursing cannot be a negative. Or can it? Are we not walking a mighty thin line here between empowering mothers with iron clad information (the countless benefits to baby and mother) and perhaps bribing them with a superficial sort of reason (lose the weight…which turns out, in my circle of friends anyway, to be anything but true!). What happens when (okay, if) the weight doesn’t come off? Will the mother stop nursing? Will she spread the negative impression of her experience to other potential nursers? I think the truth is best. Dear Mothers-to-be…here is a list of the top 10 reasons to nurse your baby…p.s. it may help shed some of those extra pounds, but it not, you can still be proud that you have done the very best thing in the world for your child. I just don’t believe it should be promoted as one of those top ten reasons.
A good marketer does research. I'm not sure if they did or not, but if they found out that formula feeding moms tended to be weight obsessed, but cared less about the (in my humble opinion) more important reasons to breastfeed, then maybe this is a good tool to change behaviour among that group.
As an aside, nursing has been a great weight loss tool. During the first 6 months, I slowly lost some of the extra pounds, but once she passed 6 months and didn't really have a great start with solids, the pounds started to melt off of me and I am constantly hungry and constantly eating.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home