LightFull the Satiety Smoothie

In 1987, a 16-year-old girl in Fountain Valley, California found out she was pregnant. Despite her young age, irresponsible boyfriend, and highly disapproving father, the girl decided that she was going to have the baby and keep it. Several months later, in what my mom describes the most painful event of her entire life, I was born.

Everyone who saw my pregnant mother thought that I'd be a boy; my mom had planned on naming me "Ryan". Friends and family gave my mom blue and red onesies, baby t-shirts, and shorts at the baby shower held prior to my birth. In fact, many early photos of me show me wearing the aforementioned "boy clothes" despite my female gender. The incorrect assumption about my gender was spurred by one simple fact: my mom was enormous during the pregnancy. She ended up gaining 75 pounds – a very large amount of weight for a petite 16-year-old. Friends and family interpreted the huge weight gain as a sign of a male child.

After I was born, what I call the "perpetual diet" began as my mom struggled to loose the weight she gained. Since then and throughout my entire life outside of the womb, my mom has been on a diet. Despite having long lost all of the weight she gained during pregnancy, my mom continues to diet. And the diet never ever ends.

Ergo, I have become far too familiar with practically any diet food or product that you can conceive of. While I was growing up, my mom was particularly partial to diet yogurts and smoothies. I have a surprisingly large amount of childhood memories of my mom organizing all her diet smoothies in the fridge after a trip to the grocery store. Thus, when I see these, I become quite nostalgic:


The product in the picture is a "satiety smoothie" called "LightFull". I always see these next to the yogurts, cheeses, and other dairy products towards the back of the supermarket. Unlike dairy products aimed towards children (like Gogurt and Trix yogurt), these smoothies tend to be located upon the very top few shelves at an adult's eye level. LightFull shares a nearly identical form as the products my mom enjoyed throughout my childhood.


The colors are bright and warm. Red and light yellow appear to be the dominant colors. Much of the red is contained in an image of a pile of ripe strawberries at the base of the bottle. The strawberry image appears to have been heavily altered via photo-editing software. The contrast has been increased causing the strawberries to appear unnaturally shiny and clean. And the saturation has also been increased to make the red of the strawberries even redder and the green leaves atop the strawberries rather yellowish. Such corrections further add to the warmth of the colors.

Against the red of the strawberries is a white label proclaiming that the smoothie contains a whopping 5 grams of fiber and protein. This white label stands out against the red strawberry image in the background. Above it, the words "strawberry bliss" also stand out, but in a different way; the words are white upon a strawberry-red background that is difficult to distinguish from the strawberries themselves when viewed from afar. Thus, it is mostly the "strawberry bliss" wording that stands out.

Above the strawberries, there is a small image that does not seem to fit will with the warm, strawberry-focused theme apparent on the rest of the bottle's front: a comically thin woman drawn in cool black and white appears to be in the process of leaping. In my eyes, it seems so visually out of place and unexpected, that I didn't notice it until I got home (when I first glanced at it, I thought it was writing). The woman has long, flowing hair and is wearing over-sized shorts and a tank top, not a dress, and tennis shoes with socks. Based on her outfit, perhaps she is jogging or exercising (which is likely considering that this is a diet beverage). Her hands are raised above her head as she appears to be juggling a tiny money bag, book, clock, and house.

The words "Surprisingly Filling", "Satiety Smoothie", "LightFULL" and "ALL NATURAL 90 LITTLE CALORIES"seemed to be stacked below the cap. The different-sized font and curvature of the letters causes this stack of words to form an upside-down triangle which is completed by the image of the leaping lady. This emphasizes the odd hourglass shape of the bottle, which, based on my experience with the beverage, does not exist for the purpose of allowing you to hold the bottle more easily. The "ALL NATURAL 90 LITTLE CALORIES" is in black and red, with the 90 in red and the rest in black; this causes the 90 to stand out the most. The phrase seems to seem a bit awkward in the context of all the titles because, if one reads top to bottom, it describes the product before you actually find out what the product is by reading the title. "LightFULL" and "Satiety Smoothie" have interesting coloration. Each is half in pink and half in red. This is the only place on the front of the bottle where a significant amount of a solid pink color appears. Interestingly, the "Light" part of "LightFULL" is pink, which can also be described as light red. The "Satiety" part of "Satiety Smoothie" is also pink, but unlike the "Light", it stands out much less because it is smaller and each letter is not outlined in red. The font of these two sets of words is very youthful looking; the curves of the letters are over-emphasized (especially that of the letter 'U'), the capitalization seems to alternate (which I did not completely capture in my typing because I'm unsure of what is supposed to be a capital letter and what is not due to the size of the letters), each line that would have been straight had this been Times New Roman font is slightly curved and has varying width. "Surprisingly Filling" is almost plain in appearance compared to all that's located above it, but somehow, this plainness draws the eye.

The wordy sides and back of the product echo the same visual themes seen on the front:

The right side of the product restates the title of the product and reiterates the points made on the front regarding nutrition. The left side states the meaning of satiety in simple, colloquial terms ("It means you're full") and contains a very promotional letter from the "LightFull Foods Co-founders") complete with illegible signatures. They claim that LightFull is a delicious, quick, easy, and very healthy food fix for busy women. The back of the product contains the typical nutrition information box that we see on almost all of our food products. The nutrition facts provide solid evidence for the claim that the product is healthy. Above the nutrition facts are directions in the same goofy, youthful font as is seen on the front. These directions command the consumer to shake before drinking and refrigerate the product. They also command the consumer to "Achieve Satiety" presumably by drinking the satiety smoothie.

I opened the bottle expecting a thick, pink, yogurt-y smoothie with bits of strawberry in it. Instead I got an almost transparent beige beverage that was the consistency of water. This texture and appearance coupled with the grossly sweet "strawberry" flavor made for a disgusting beverage. I felt full afterwards, but it was they way you feel full after seeing someone throw up; you're so disgusted that you don't feel in the mood for food.

Diet products have a bad reputation for tasting gross and my experience with this product definitely corroborated this. Thus, many companies choose to use euphemisms for "diet": "sugar free", "light", "low calorie", "healthy", "zero calories", and even "all natural" are common euphemisms. LightFull is doing the same thing when they state that their product is a "Satiety Smoothie". The word "diet" cannot be found anywhere on this bottle. Instead I only find a few of the euphemisms for the word "diet" mentioned above.

Because of the grossness associated with diet foods, it is in LightFull Food's best interest to portray their product as not only euphemistically diet but also delicious and appetizing. And indeed, nearly every single aspect of the front of the product is there to convey either of the above. It is astounding how well thought out the packaging of the product is. Warm colors like red and yellow have long been thought by scientists to arouse hunger. Cooler colors often do the opposite; studies show that people who eat food off of blue plates will eat less than those eating off of yellow plates. The strawberries, which contribute to much of the red on the bottle, are graphically altered so that they look more appetizing. They are made more red and they are very clean looking. Studies show that people highly prefer to eat food that is the correct color; a picture of a blue, green, or purple strawberry will seem highly unappetizing unlike the red strawberry. Thus, the red of the strawberries is emphasized. Imagine if the image of the strawberries showed that the strawberries were dusty or had dirt on them; how appetizing would that be? Thus the strawberries are made to look almost squeaky clean. And on the strawberries, "Strawberry Bliss" is written. To me, this implies that the beverage is just so delicious that it will induce a state of bliss from the strawberry taste alone. This along with the strawberry image is what bolstered my expectation of a pink beverage with strawberry bits in it; it's what I'm used to getting from tasty strawberry-flavored dairy products. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met with this product. But I'm sure I would have been less disappointed (and also less willing to drink the beverage) if they'd shown the brown wateriness that the smoothie actually was.

The image of the woman serves several purposes. Based on her outfit, it appears that she is exercising in some way which delicately conveys that the product is a diet beverage. She is simultaneously juggling symobls of money, work (or school), time, and home. Based on her huge smile, she looks like she's having a good time doing so, despite that fact that she appears to be in quite a hurry. In a way, LightFull Foods is saying "we understand you". They use this little picture to convey "diet" along with the ideas that modern women have many roles that they must juggle in order to live their lives: wife, employee, mother, caretaker, student, etc. LightFull Foods shows a woman literally juggling symbols of all of these roles and difficulties. The literal interpretation of the word "juggle" (which is often used when describing busy people) conveys that although the woman is smiling, her life is tough. Apparently, LightFull Foods wants you to know that they understand your struggles. Apparently, they understand that it's hard to juggle all of your different roles and duties in today's world. Apparently, they understand that this makes it hard for many women to diet. LightFull Food's solution and answer to dieting women's troubles: a satiety smoothie. The sides of the bottle underscores my point; in the letter to the consumer, the founders begin by saying "All our lives we've longed for a convenient snack that helps us stay healthy [diet euphemism] while juggling life's responsibilities [LightFull Foods apparently understands]. That's why we created LightFull Satiety Smoothie [now buy our product!]..."

"ALL NATURAL 90 LITTLE CALORIES", "Satiety Smoothie", and "Surprisingly Filling" are direct euphemisms for the fact that the product is a diet beverage that is meant to decrease hunger so that the consumer eats less and looses weight. Even the shape of the bottle itself shows this. It's hourglass-shaped – the same shape that's often described as the most desirable female body shape there is. Many dieting women will describe how their "shooting for that perfect hourglass figure". And LightFull Foods hints that if you drink their smoothie, that shape is attainable. They'll even remind you of what it looks like by making the bottle an hourglass shape.

Finally, the title of the product along with the appearance of that title practically scream "delicious diet food". The "Light" part of "LightFULL" on the front is lighter in color than the red seen on the rest of the bottle. This serves to visually communicate the diet euphemism "light". The "FULL" part of "LightFULL" is in all capital letters. These large, full letters communicate the feeling of satiety. Fullness is directly reiterated in the "Satiety Smoothie" part via the word "satiety". Also, the word "smoothie" is used (as opposed to beverage) in order to make the product more appetizing an dessert-like. Further underscoring the claim that the product is pleasant and delicious is the way the name of the product sounds. Say "LightFull" outloud and try saying the letter "d" in front of it. It sounds like "delightful"; in fact, it's only one phonetic syllable away from actually being the word "delightful". Unfortunately, this so-called smoothie is far from the delightfully delicious satiety smoothie that LightFull Foods tries so hard to make it appear to be. Perhaps "SguSting" would be a more honest name for this product.