"Popular" Middle School Girls

In this Geico commercial, a man is followed around by three "popular" middle school girls for a means of dieting in order to save money.

This advertisement portrays numerous negative ideas; it's supposed to be funny, but instead, it's actually pretty sad. The character of the man is displaying an idea of losing weight at all costs, which is bad, but what makes it horrible is how the young girls are involved and displayed.

The commercial simply gives a bad reputation to middle school girls. The young girls are helping the man with starvation by bothering him about the "gross" food. These are the main characteristics of Anorexia Nervosa. So, is this commercial really portraying teenage girls that are "popular" as Anorexics?

The last thing that needs to happen is for girls to see this and think about being "popular" and associating it with ideas like these. Popular is a good thing to young girls, and there's nothing wrong with that, but the message here is that in the "popular group," food is shameful and you will get criticized for eating. 

Young people grow up surrounded by influences that food is "gross" and shameful. It's the media who taught them that and it's the media that's giving them a bad reputation.