As a gym goer, and holding above average nutritional knowledge, taking supplements as part of a decent diet is not detrimental and in some cases can be beneficial. The store is just a typical supplements store, they want you to buy their products. No product should be taken alone without looking at your entire nutritional intake (i.e. whole foods). However, shakes, and meal replacement can give you nutrients without bulking yourself out with excessive calories.
The fitness model will have a knowledge of diets/nutrition and will be working along side nutritional experts and professional trainers etc. so I doubt that her nutritional intake is below recommended amounts - her blogs suggest a pretty good diet actually despite being vegan.
The body in the advert is not exaggerated at all - my gym has many women and men that could appear on the cover of magazines - if I weren't so hairy I may even be in with a shot!
It is all perfectly achievable and realistic - that's what people don't understand, but also are not willing to sacrifice to put the effort in to actually achieve their goals.
My point is that there has always been a huge amount of people who live long and happy lives without being gym goers.
I am not calling anyone who has the time/determination to spend in the gym and fair play to those that do and learn about nutrition.
Similarly, those who are overweight to the point it affects their health specifically, need to do something about it.
What I am saying is that there are a large number of people who, though simple self control and sensible lifestyle (walking that mile to work instead of taking the car) are perfectly healthy, balanced people. To get that models body (and the same for the man in the ad campaign) you need to really work at it, it isn't a NORMAL human body, it's been forced into that state through repetitive exercise and effectively clinically controlled nutrition intake. But, whether people want to or not, they take in that body image and when they don't see it in the mirror SOME will have a negative feeling towards themselves.
True, that then may lead to them taking up the gym lifestyle and getting that body, but the point here is that publicly displayed adverts shouldn't make people feel like they HAVE to do that. As long as they are healthy then who is society to tell them what they should look like? And those who deny the negative mental implications, especially on younger minds, of this sort of imagery are deluding themselves. We are forming a youth that is stressed about every little thing, including whether they are "ripped" or not. This is not a healthy state of society...
These ads are made all the worse by referring to the whole "beach body" thing when in fact they should be saying "do you have a body so toned that, once air brushed and artfully photographed in a controlled studio environment makes somebody look at it and think 'wow', if not then you need to spend a good 6-10 (at least) hours in the gym working out very hard to a set regime per week and control your diet to within a minute detail", but it will never say that as a) it's not snappy enough and b) it won't sell protein powder...
A far better solution is that this sort of advertising is only allowed in targeted publications (e.g. Men's Health) and places where people are not going to be passively exposed to it. That doesn't mean they can't have an advert up in a tube station, it just needs to be far more factual and less visually impacting.
