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- Yoga in advertising is the use of images of modern yoga as exercise to market products of any kind, whether related to yoga or not. Goods sold in this way have included canned beer, fast food and computers. Yoga is an ancient meditational spiritual practice from India, with the goal of the isolation of the self. This goal was replaced with modern goals like good health. Yoga itself was transformed into a form of exercise in India early in the 20th century, and adopted across the Western world for mass consumption. From the 1980s, the yoga market grew and diversified, with brands such as Iyengar Yoga being joined by newer brands like Anusara Yoga. Yoga began as a spiritual practice for men, but has become a physical activity mainly for women. The purpose of using yoga in advertising ranges from giving a favourable impression of a product or service, to selling specific yoga-related items like classes, clothing and props. Some such uses, such as of religious symbols like the sacred syllable Om, have been described as cultural appropriation. Yoga advertisements employ themes such as the sexual objectification of women, self-transformation through physical means, and the promise of reduced stress. Images of women in difficult yoga poses feature in advertisements to convey desirable qualities such as serenity, attractiveness, perfectionism, earnesness, flexibility, and grace. (en)
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