Buy Walking VideosTrimJeans: Why Laugh At 1971 When We Take 2010 So Seriously?
I saw this advertisement from 1971 and I immediately smiled to myself.
It’s an advertisement for the hilariously styled, TrimJeans. The ad says:
Trim-Jeans with the Fabulous New Sauna Belt
Guaranteed to reduce your waist, abdomen, hips and thighs a total of from 6 to 9 inches in just 3 days or your money refunded
I laugh at this ad because I KNOW that TrimJeans didn’t reduce ANY part of my grandma’s body when she wore them. I know from experience that they just made her look silly when she wore them.
On the other hand, these sorts of products are still around today. Take the Avon/Curves Trimming Shorts:
When I posted an entry about them last year (Curves and Avon Embrace Quackery), they were staunchly defended by the Avon community, despite the experts in the field who say otherwise:
Fat is not melted away by warm clothing…it is only lost when consumed by the body as a source of fuel. Do cardio for over 20 minutes and you’ll start to burn fat. The sweat under your shorts is just water trying to keep you cool…not fat.
Why are we so eager to laugh at 1971 when the SAME things are being marketed today? Sure, the neoprene shorts don’t look as silly as the TrimJeans, but there is nothing funny about their false promises.
TrimJeans Ad Via: LiveJournal: TrimJeans, 1971
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December 15th, 2010 at 6:37 am
If they work at all, they do so by being excessively uncomfortable and keeping your body in your consciousness all the time. One sport equipment manufacturer in Austria marketed a miraculous little gadget for healing your flat feet: It was essentially nothing but a small wooden ball, about the size of a cherry. You had to put it in your shoe and leave it there constantly. The pain it caused made you flex your arches when walking. Now I’m pretty sure that no person with flat feet can flex their arches, so they take the hellish little ball out because it hurts like hell. But that doesn’t prove that this rubbish does not work – the customer wasn’t wearing it! The best was the price: Would have been something like 30$ today for two wooden balls that would cost you a few cent in a crafts store.