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.

JollyPostman I assure you that a body like that would be more achievable for me than a penthouse apartment in New York and a huge group of young sexy carefree friends to come and party with me there whenever I wanted to!

What I don't get is this idea that we're all so sensitive that we are going to go home and weep because an advert suggested that we're not good enough. That's the job of adverts - to make us want things we don't or can't have - that's always been the way the industry works. It's rank, but that rankness is not at all exclusive to adverts about beach bodies or diet pills.

I may be tall and slim but I am covered in scars and moles that make me extremely self-conscious on the beach. This model's skin is perfect (whether airbrushed or not) but I don't think that people with perfect skin should be banned from adverts because of that. Or that adverts for Perfectil or Bio-Oil or whatever should be banned.

I will also never have sleek beautiful manageable hair, or be 25 again - ditto!

As people have mentioned, the social media backlash of women saying they are #beachbodyready whatever their size is a great example of how people aren't passive victims of commercialism and advertising.

So has he banned Dove adverts showing fat women? These new rules are going to be very complicated. What about NHS adverts encouraging large people to lose weight or just a standard weight watchers before and after?

Do we have a link to the exact wording of his new rules?

60% of us are fat and if we all looked more like the lady in the bikini every one would be hugely better off and the NHS would be saved a fortune.

user...881 oh you do make me laugh sometimes.

Again, where do you draw the line?

Do we ban toothpaste adverts for promoting an image that only bright white perfectly even teeth are healthy? I have crooked teeth, and they are distinctly not white. Should I feel smile-shamed? Should we ban all images of people smiling because there are people like me who can never achieve that? Or is it for me to deal with my own issues? (Whether that's acceptance of myself, therapy, or Oral B 'cause it'll make me look like Shakira.)

The model looks exactly like all the cast of a show called Baywatch. So its ok to have it on TV but once you use it for advertising its illegal?

Wont this actually teach young girls to be even more confused about their bodies?

It's not the image on its own, is it?

It's the tagline accompanying it that took it from an anodyne garden variety of self-esteem bruiser to Great Wallop Over The Head Attack On Women's Bodies.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has moved to ban from the city’s transport network adverts that promote unrealistic expectations about body image and health.

Khan, elected in May, has told Transport for London to stop running body-shaming ads amid concerns that the advertising “can demean people, particularly women”.

He had pledged to tackle advertising on the tube network during his campaign after ads such as the “Beach body ready” campaign last April led to protests. An online petition calling for their removal attracted more than 70,000 signatures.

The company behind the ads, Protein World, was accused of “directly targeting individuals, aiming to make them feel physically inferior to the unrealistic body image of the bronzed model, in order to sell their product”.

It was not banned by the Advertising Standards Authority despite more than 200 complaints.

In a statement, Khan said: “As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end.

“Nobody should feel pressurised, while they travel on the tube or bus, into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies and I want to send a clear message to the advertising industry about this.

The mayor’s office said it had also asked TfL to set set up a steering group in partnership with its advertising agencies, Exterion Media and JCDecaux, to monitor and review compliance with rules. Between them the two companies manage TfL’s £1.5bn advertising business, which runs around 12,000 ads a year.

TfL’s commercial development director, Graeme Craig, said: “Advertising on our network is unlike TV, online and print media. Our customers cannot simply switch off or turn a page if an advertisement offends or upsets them and we have a duty to ensure the copy we carry reflects that unique environment.”

Milk i think i have seen one about the smile being picture perfect,and that using the product will stop you not smiling in your pictures because you're ashamed of your teeth. I don't agree with that either. Here is how to achieve cleaner,healthier,better looking teeth is fine. Get healthier,cleaner,whiter teeth because otherwise you'll have bad photos or not smile at all is not

Excellent post redtoothbrush, thank you for the background information.

if we all looked more like the lady in the bikini every one would be hugely better off and the NHS would be saved a fortune

I hope you have factored into this equation the cost of repairing all the botched plastic surgery since people can't look like that since its not natural.

Or are the NHS going to pay for all this plastic surgery too.

Also, if you know a plastic surgeon who can make a 70 year old woman look that great please forward the details to the church since a miracle worker has just been spotted reversing the process of aging.

I don't think the line is that hard to draw. Sadique is obviously happy to draw it.

I can't stop laughing at the blog linked though "my personal trainer friend said..." Like they're the authority on it

10tinycrabs that was purely a copy and paste.

Rebel - that's just it. According to my dentist my teeth are perfectly healthy and perfectly clean, but they're not perfectly white or perfectly even. So toothpaste adverts should not use models who have had their teeth whitened cosmetically or digitally. Nor should they imply that having anything other than straight white teeth is an imperfection that needs to be corrected.

London 'Mayer' in Fulfils election promise and supports campaign of 70,000 signature shocker.

Would have been a shit newspaper headline wouldn't it?

Pretty damn scandalous that one.

I do wonder what the reaction would have been if it had been Boris who had done the same thing...

Personally, I'm proud of MN for managing a post saying that the world would be better if we all looked like a rather tall, slim white, blonde woman, all by page 10.

Actually, I'm not sure "proud" covers it, really.

Milk i think i confused myself. At this point i don't know if we're agreeing,disagreeing or what .
Like i said my issue is the message(a very direct message) not the model's body or teeth. In the case of teeth is like saying you shouldn't smile and hide them because they're not perfectly white and straight,unless you use their product of course. A size 10 fit,toned, very healthy woman still wouldn't be beach body ready as she's nowhere near to the model. Hell even the model IRL doesn't quite look like herself in the picture due to airbrushing,photoshopping etc.

Anyone would think that the only way you can advertise anything is by having a perfect person in an advert.

The best advertising campaigns I've seen very rarely do this and are much more imaginative on their approach.

Lets not forget that one of the best advertising campaigns of all time is cuprinol.

Rebel - I think we're agreeing on some bits, but not others!

I think we're agreeing that advertising is shit and has the potential to make people feel shit about themselves.

I think we're not agreeing on whether that's justification for banning an ad or not.

I've probably got the wrong end of the stick though - I usually do

Well guess I am not a proper person for not putting a chemical on my wooden shed. Garden shaming!

TaraCarter "I'm proud of MN for managing a post saying that the world would be better if we all looked like a rather tall, slim white, blonde woman, all by page 10."

Literally no one has ever said or suggested this.

This is the insanity of responses to this advert.

user (whatever no you are using today) The Dove women arent fat. Some of them are a size 12 which is what ive lost ten stone to get down to.

Helena that's simply not true.

There is no way this woman, for example, is a size 12:
chippersengl.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/dove-skin-firming-range-linda-small-86685.jpg

I would also be surprised if the women on the far left and far right of this picture are smaller than a size 14-16
www.visiblemeasures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Dove-Real-Beauty-Campaign.jpg

I actually love this Dove campaign for showing that it's not a choice between Kate Moss and Tess Holliday.

I think the media's obsession with either the very skinny or the morbidly obese is a far more dangerous message than showing this range of women who all have different, but healthy, body sizes and shapes

60% of us are fat
and so SK has taken the opportunity to gain popularity by decrying something which makes a large swath of people feel bad about themselves.
and why wouldn't he....it's low hanging fruit after all

The real problem is the obeseogenic culture, the over-availability of hyper-palatable food which so easily tips those who are susceptible into food addiction and generally having an appetite which is out of sync with physiological need.

However that problem is much more difficult to address and has thus far proved intractable

I've not watched it all yet but I'm finding this quite interesting
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07fys2y/horizon-20152016-11-why-are-we-getting-so-fat

Proteus im a size 12/14 and there is not much difference between me and the woman on the left. Except im more hourglassy with big boobs.

I take a size 12 FITTED skirt. a size 14 in a dress But an 18 blouse because of big boobs (Garlic has explained this on the other thread) However if it doesnt involve buttons over the boobs its a 12 to 14.

I agree with what you say about the campaign It shows different body shapes which of course women are.