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¶ … Marketing Media Analysis

Hungry Girl" is a website that is devoted to cataloging low-calorie products, diet advice, and other forms of information presumably of interest to female dieters. The fact that it is 'normal' for women to be dieting is immediately conveyed in the website section entitled "Who is Hungry Girl?" The website owner or personality of 'Hungry Girl' states: "My name is Lisa and I'm just an average female, struggling with the same food issues most females struggle with every day. I try the latest fad diets, chomp on new fat free foods & diet products, and yes, I too order everything on the side....I've struggled with weight issues for most of my life, and aside from the occasional slice of molten chocolate cake, I finally have it under control" ("Who is Hungry Girl?" 2007, Hungry Girl).

By giving herself a name, Hungry Girl casts herself as a sympathetic friend rather than a canny marketer in the eyes of the reader. Hungry Girl admits that she is no nutritionist. Still, she says that by limiting her intake of "dry carbs" drinking 14 glasses of water a day, sticking to her Weight Watchers points and keeping her mind on "cute pants" she is able to fight the "flab" ("Who is Hungry Girl?" 2007, Hungry Girl).

A normal woman, the website implies, is just like Hungry Girl -- constantly worried about her weight. A normal woman has tried lots of fad diets, needs fad diets to fit into her favorite pants, and is fixated on forbidden foods like chocolate. Note that focusing on pre-packaged foods produced by the diet industry, rather than sweaty exercise, is the primary weight loss technique offered by the website. Fitting into fashionable clothing rather than health is the presumed priority of all women. And it is because Hungry Girl is "only hungry, but also very nice" that she is sharing her tips, not because of any advertising revenue the website might generate ("Who is Hungry Girl?" 2007, Hungry Girl).

Female identity is fused not just with thinness, but weight anxiety, and specifically aligned with a cultural preoccupation with food, not health or physical athleticism. Thinness can be bought by eating the 'right' foods, even though women are forever craving the 'wrong foods.' For example, here is a section entitled "Chew the Right Thing" that offers advice in articles like "Strip Tease" which suggests that although everyone wants to eat Chicken McNuggets, a lower calorie alternative is rolling chicken in Egg Beaters and Fiber One crumbs to curtail a fast food craving. That the desire for processed chicken in general might be a culturally manufactured desire goes unremarked upon ("Strip Tease," 2007, Chew on This: Hungry Girl).

Female thinness as a visual social value rather than a health issue is reinforced through every section of the site, specifically female thinness. The need for help in the pursuit of thinness is important as well, because the young, female website surfer might fall into a high-calorie craving trap without Hungry Girl's 'nice' girlfriend-like advice, or keeping track of calories and Weight Watchers points. The female-focused nature of the site is obvious from its title, but also in terms of the foods stressed on the site, like chocolate, which presumably all females wish to consume around 'that time of the month.' Also, the target audience seems to be single females, given that almost all the recipes are in single servings, and seems unlikely to be palatable to anyone but a dieter.

One exception to this single-serving focus is a burger recipe (a presumably unfeminine food) which is introduced with the tag like: "There are some days when a silly little salad or steamed chicken & veggie dish isn't gonna be enough to satisfy you. That's why we've whipped up some Hungry Girl MANLY MEALS! Get ready for some guilt-free stuff that'll have your boyfriends, brothers, handyman knockin' at your kitchen door!" ("Ready for a little manly meal action from HG?! (2007). Weekly Weigh-in: Hungry Girl) of course, women are always hungry in a frightening way that they must deny, but if they must indulge, they will do it to attract a 'manly man' with a sure crowd-pleasing meal involving red meat between two buns -- so much for no 'dry carbs' when male attention is at steak.

Overall, the message is that the gaze of Hungry Girl is looking at 'you' a single female filled with cravings for 'bad' foods, but there are, through the diet industry, many substitute goods that can help 'you' fight your 'bad' cravings and achieve the goal of slenderness. The cartoon icon of Hungry Girl, despite her protestations of having had a weight problem, is slender, and the design of the site is fun, girlish, and pink. There is even a games section where the surfer can 'smash' bad high calorie foods. The idea that chocolate or ice cream could be consumed in moderation by a woman is antithetical to such a representation -- 'bad' foods must be done away with entirely, and replaced with substitutes.