I spent an hour yesterday going through 6 parenting/pregnancy magazines
getting material for new slides for my talks -- some interesting things
going on in terms of ads.  Johnson and Johnson's ad for their bent bottle
now includes two entire sentences on the superiority of breast milk for
babies, and says you should use their bottles when you supplement your
breast milk (rather than "if you choose not to breastfeed" or "after you've
weaned" language).

Avent ads no longer say that their nipples are so close to mother than baby
won't be able to tell the difference (do you think I shamed/embarrassed
them into changing it??).  They do say that baby can easily go back and
forth between breast and Avent nipple.  But the funniest thing is that the
ad shows a nice picture of mom and baby breastfeeding, but the copy says
something like "All you need for breastfeeding . . . an Avent pump."  Uh
gee, and I always thought you needed a baby and a breast.  Silly me.

Other strange ads -- one for a push-up bra that shows a woman in front of
an airplane.  The copy screams in big letters at the top: "Are you breasts
in their full upright position?"

And an ad for facial cream that shows a jar of face cream with a bottle
nipple on top, and the copy says something like "You're not a baby any
more, but you still need your formula."  Gag.





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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email:
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Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html