I very much dislike that commercial for Weight Watchers. Like you, I thought all the ladies were rather lovely to begin with. Now, I think it's cool if one wants to take off weight for health reasons, but it's funny how commercials advertise the seriously overweight as size 14 or 16. Um, WTF? That's a pretty average size in our country.

I also find it ironic that CHER, of all people, is singing in a Weight Watchers commercial, as she's, what, maybe 2 pounds soaking wet? *gives the hand*

And also, Cher as a spokesperson for loving yourself is risible - the woman's had as much plastic surgery as Michael Jackson, she was just luckier.

We don't get the Cher ad here (at least not yet, as far as I know), but we do get a whole slew of other weight loss ads with the same "eeeeewww" after shots. The worst are the ones for the bariatric surgery clinis. The afters all look like freak, with very plasticky looking skin and not-exactly-glowing health. The sad thing is that the diet industry in this country has so many people brainwashed into thinking that fat equals unattractive that we aren't supposed to notice just how awful the after shots generally look.
And, for the record, skinny doesn't make you popular, either. It's a sick industry that promises people who have been marginalized by the prejudices of their society that everything will be okay if they just starve themselves for long enough.

Feeling better about oneself does help - a little. And WW might help with that if you attend the meeetings, so you learn to interact with other people. If you do it by yourself, it's not so wonderful. But when the diet fails (they all fail), you feel like a failure and it's back in your shell.

We need to learn that there's a difference between fat and out of shape, or skinny and healthy. You should see my current instructor - she's *gorgeous* and confident and glowing with health. She's also over 200 pounds. I'd take that.