Skinny means very thin or unusually slender. Although it is a highly popular word, marketers avoid it but label their “sassier” products differently because the word, skinny, reinforces the stereotypes of women and body images. Interestingly, some items go for skinnier whereas others do not.

Fashion items want to be skinnier. According to J. Crew Sells “Toothpick” Jeans, Because Skinny Jeans Just Weren’t Body-Negative Enough, ” J. Crew has sensed that a lot of women are pretty over the use of the word skinny to sell everything from highly unhealthy, chemical-filled cocktails to stretch denims or it’s just an err in advertising. This clothier found that skinny jeans are not skinny enough and chosen “toothpick” to label their slimmest line of jeans.

This is not the case for the beverage items. Pepsi introduced a skinny can in 2011 at New York’s Fashion Week. According to the Diet Pepsi ‘skinny’ can stirs up big controversy, Jill Beraud, chief marketing officer for PepsiCo said in a statement, “Our slim, attractive new can is the perfect complement to today’s most stylish looks, and we’re excited to throw its coming-out party during the biggest celebration of innovative design in the world.” Unfortunately, it was blamed for offensiveness immediately. Within a few months, Pepsi launches new fatter skinny cans in aftermath of controversy. It fattened up its diet skinny can “with a redesign that aims, perhaps, to distance itself from a controversy that bubbled up earlier this year.”