Sadiq Khan shouldn't be able to tell us what is an unhealthy body

[feellikeahugefailure]

So the London Mayer has banned adverts with “Unhealthy or Unrealistic” body images. Doesn't this just all feed into people these days unaware of what a healthy body image is? This woman is in great shape and looks very healthy to me.

Sorry if there has been a post on this, I find the advanced search here not that great.

The woman in the first pic is fat though, right? By any standards. Not as an INSULT, but a description.

I think the woman on the right of the second pic, as we're looking at it, is very well-built and tall I would be Extremely surprised if she wears a size 12.

I didnt look at the first pic.

glassgarden Great post and i agree entirely.

SK showed during his mayoral campaign that he is nothing if not a pragmatist. I don't mind - I feel safer, in the current climate, with a pragmatist rather than an ideologue in charge.

He has just done this for easy point-scoring; it's meaningless.

The UK population is not getting fatter and unhealthier (if that's a word) because of adverts with slim pretty women in them. Models in the 1960s and 70s were WAY skinnier, and the population was much slimmer than it is now.

I agree we live in an obesogenic society and it takes real conscious ongoing effort not to be fat. We should be looking at ways of 'nudging' people away from weight gain and enabling healthy eating and exercise, not pointlessly banning adverts.

Just looked at it. In my opinion no she isnt My stomach would probably be seen as big because IME a lot of ppl cant tell the difference between weight and loose skin.

Diet products are partly to blame They are PACKED with sugar. I eat full fat versions but in smaller portions.

I really don't get the angst about the advert TBH.

It's an advert, it sells a product, I would like to think most people have enough common sense to distinguish between an advert and an order.

I disagree completely about that woman - that is not loose skin. i have loose skin on my lower belly, after two pregnancies, a c-section, and a rapid 4-stone weight loss after 2nd pregnancy - and it looks nothing like that. My loose skin (which is horrible) looks wrinkly and sort of empty - it's obviously loose skin over a thinnish frame. You can see my ribs and my hipbones clearly.

She has a chubby belly, big chunky thighs that are pushed together, and round arms without muscle tone. You can't see any bone or muscle anywhere on her body other than a bit of collarbone. This is all straight description. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it, but to say that she's not fat is I think disingenuous.

If you look like the woman on the left of the 2nd pic, you are a very different size/shape from the woman in the 1st pic.

it takes real conscious ongoing effort not to be fat
I think that for most people Proteus yes that is true, you really have to swim against the tide, and then you risk being labelled weird or health/food/exercise obsessed

imo there is often a sense that we ought to just be effortlessly slim but lured at every turn by food which is designed precisely by scientist in labs to tap right into our dopamine/pleasure circuits and trigger cravings for more of it
well it's just not possible for many people

of course we are then rich pickings for the diet industry

livestock to be milked for profit by the food, pharma and diet industry
yes yes, hyperbole but you get my point

She's not fat. I'm fat She's average..not quite fat not quite skinny. It's not just fat and skinny.

No i meant if i dared to wear a bikini ppl would mistake my loose skin for weight.

Ive had two ppl tell me that you can deffo excersise off loose skin. My belly droops down.....only slightly but it does affect my silouette. So i could fall somewhere between the two women i suppose.

I will NOT apologise for having slightly droopy belly. Its a badge.........a symbol of what ive achieved.

I just don't think the debate around this advert is anything to do with why people get fat or how we feel about rates of obesity or anything like that. It's about saying you don't have to be slim to go to the beach - and not just slim so much as completely flawless. That's not 'pandering to fat activism', it's telling the advertisers to piss off because unless I require a crane to winch me there, I'm going to take my wobbly belly to the bloody beach so you can just get ready for the sight of it.

So why have some people have reacted so badly to the advert - interpreting it as saying they must look like the model to be beach ready, while others have just shrug their shoulders and ignored it.

Do the people who've had such a negative reaction to it take all adverts so literally?

I don't take it literally, Milk, and I used to go past one of these billboard every day on my way to work and it didn't have an effect on my personal self esteem or make me in any way wary of taking my body to the beach, 'ready' or not. But just because I can shrug it off doesn't mean I'm happy about the dominant narrative in society dictating a narrow ideal to women and framing it as an imperative duty that they must be pleasing to the eye, that they are always on display, that a nice, relaxing holiday is actually just another occasion on which they will be judged and found wanting. I think it is a particularly harmful narrative for teenage girls especially. I'm glad it has been robustly challenged - and the campaign discussed above of #mybodyisabikinibody is a hugely positive outcome from the whole furore.

"10tinycrabs that was purely a copy and paste." Well chosen bit of text to copy & paste then .

As for 'nudging' people to eat more healthily, sure that's one approach. Nudge away and provide healthy rounded meals in workplaces and places of education. Ban the sweetie stand from the till, offer healthy snacks at cinemas etc. But this will not address other issues such as there being a massive industry pushing processed food products. Would you also be in favour of banning advertising for unhealthy foods on TV? Or on children's channels only? Where is the balance between nanny state and freedom of choice? Obesity is related to health inequalities with higher prevalence of obesity among people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, nudging wouldn't be all that effective for this population.

Let's remember when calling people fat that fundamentally people have different genetic predispositions in terms of built, hormones and digestions and not all individuals will suffer from ill health because they are overweight, this is only true if you look at illness on a population level.

on a side note, I don't find it very helpful to call people fat, it sounds contemptuous and haughty.

We're all different, some people are more sensitive to body shaming than others for a variety of reasons - and it's not always because they are overweight, I'd imagine many women of a healthy weight would find a figure like in this advert difficult/impossible to achieve. Some people are more vulnerable to adverts like this than others, teenage girls, women with mental health issues, women who are post partum and might still be coming to terms with their body post-baby etc.

Just because some people can brush it off doesn't mean we should disregard the effect that adverts like this have on some people.

"So why have some people have reacted so badly to the advert - interpreting it as saying they must look like the model to be beach ready, while others have just shrug their shoulders and ignored it."

In the kindest possible way, milk are you aware that people are different? Different personalities, backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses, cultures, habits, experiences and challenges? That should be obvious?

Milk just because something doesn't affect me personally doesn't mean it can't disagree with the message or empathise how it could affect others. Just like that stupid add with "spike your best friends eggnog". It's fucking despicable but i'm not affected by it,i'm not american, shop at Bloomingdales ,have a male best friend,or spend christmas with anyone else but family. It doesn't make the add any less offensive and outrageous.

I have not been negatively affected by the beach body add...but i can see the message and i disagree with it.

Proteus: Literally no one has ever said or suggested this.

Indeed one person very much did, hence why I commented on it- User...881. I don't generally take any of her sentiments seriously, but that's not the same as deeming them and their implications unworthy of mockery. I do think it's worth posing whether she would have said the same if it had been an image of a slim black model.

If it makes you feel better, I can follow up with a query about the impact on public health if the shorter set had leg-breaking procedures en masse, in order to increase their height to that of that model?

Surely it's only dominant if you allow it to be.

Perhaps we should be teaching our children the reality behind the ad campaigns rather than banning them in the hope that pretending they don't exist will solve the problem.

Certainly we should teach our children the machinations of advertising. As the debate around this advert is probably helping us to do as it's a helpful and interesting example.

But in terms of solving the problem - the problem here is about adverts telling us we shouldn't be seen on the beach if we don't look good enough so I think that problem would in fact be solved by banning the slogan and changing the ad so that it doesn't contribute further to the toxic and unpleasant misogyny prevalent in our culture already. We will teach our children to see through it when we stand up and challenge it and don't allow it to stand.

Milk how many teenagers affected by self esteem issues tell their parent "you're just saying that bcs you're my parent and you love me.you're supposed to say that" or "uhm..yeah ok" but then go and cry in their room because some girls told her she's fat and ugly,and a boy said he wouldn't date her cause of her acne.

Would be interesting to know if people who disagree with the ad would be willing to pay an extra premium on their travel/train tickets for the luxury of not having adverts.

I would place a pretty hefty wager they would opt for the discounted tickets that advertisements subsidise. Lets see is SK raises or lowers transport prices.

I am aware of the reality behind advertising and the techniques they use to suck people in.

That doesn't stop me from being affected by some campaigns though.

I don't really see why adverts like this shouldn't be banned, no

Pressed send too soon...

It's not like anyone would lose out as a result, maybe the company will learn how to make more appropriate adverts for their product in future.