So annoying, in fact, that I googled it, and found out that there’s a whole culture of people out there who find the ad equally repellent. Many, unfortunately, have commented on the size of the main actress, and the backlash against the backlash against the commercial (isn’t everything in America these days a backlash against a backlash?) is that the haters of the commercial are simply “fat shaming” the actress. So let me state right off the bat that indeed, fat shaming is a horrible thing, and my objection to the commercial has nothing to do with the fact that the lead actress is overweight.
Rather, what really irritates me about the commercial (other than the cloyingly obnoxious jingle) is that it perpetuates the great pharmaceutical lie about type 2 diabetes: namely, that it’s an incurable disease that is best controlled with medication. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that type 2 diabetes is often curable, and almost always manageable, with lifestyle modification, and – provided they make the correct changes – many type 2 diabetics don’t require any medication at all.