Is it Catching?
I think this commercial was for One-A-Day Plus Calcium vitamins for women. Anyway, the commercial showed a young lady on a train sitting at the window. Outside an old woman is being helped onto the train, hunched over, brittle and frail. The announcer mentions something gentle about getting older, then suddenly his voice turns sour, like he's about to mention the grim reaper, and he utters the name of this old woman's terrible affliction: "Osteoporosis!"
In the train, the beautiful young woman recoils in what is borderline horror from seeing this old hag. Her thoughtful smile is replaced by a look of worry and dread. And she is right. I haven't seen any studies, but from this ad I'm certain that osteoporosis is as contageous as bubonic plague. Not only that, but unless we all start taking a calcium supplement immediately, we'll become useless cripples by the time we hit fifty!
Actually this ad is alot closer to the truth than you might think. "Americans, on the average, don't get enough calcium." I believe it. The anorexic actress sitting in the train probably hasn't had a glass of milk since she read (at age 12) that milk has lots more calories than Diet Pepsi, and a slice of Velveeta probably sends her running to the bathroom to shove a finger or two down her throat. Your average person may not get as much calcium as the government recommends, but they certainly won't end up looking like Burgess Merrideth waddling along as The Penguin in the old Batman series. And guess what? Osteoporosis isn't contageous. You can't even get it from a toilet seat. So just drink your milk, and you'll be okay.
This message has been brought to you by the Dairy Farmers of Michigan and Bulimics Anonymous- the only party where the CAKE jumps out of the GIRL...
