The advertising industry makes frequent use of American’s reliance on metaphor to express themselves and understand the human experience. This report will examine the presence of metaphor in five different websites of weight-loss programs. This examination will produce a set of most frequently referred to metaphors in the weight-loss industry. Most basically, the websites of Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet, Special K, and Nutrisystem were systematically printed out. The homepage and any page that is one click away from the homepage were examined for their use of metaphorical language. After the metaphors were identified, they were sorted and the frequency of certain metaphors to talk about weight-loss became apparent. First we will examine the metaphors and the coherency of the metaphorical linguistic system they work within. Secondly, we will make some value-judgments as to the degree to which these metaphors serve to enhance or detract from a progressive ideal of body image, weight, and lifestyle. Lastly, we will propose our own alternative metaphorical system that may be better suited to achieving progressive measures regarding lifestyle and weight-loss.
