To think banning this ad is outrageous?

[JadeyLauraPie]

As a society are we so emotionally fragile and immature now that we can't handle seeing someone thin without going off the rails and being at risk of making unhealthy choices to aspire to fashion? There's jabs everywhere for God's sake and somehow m&s are being taken to task about this : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/23/ms-advert-banned-for-featuring-unhealthily-thin-model/ why are we all treated as though we can't think for ourselves and make decisions that are right for us? I also strongly resent the notion that people who are thin are unhealthy. I don't even think anyone in the public cares? It's just such a non issue.. I wouldn't call the model unhealthy either, I'm Slavic and by our standards that's a pretty normal physique. I'm so fed up with how molly coddled we have become. Aibu?

I really didn’t like the fashion trend of clothes always being modelled by emaciated androgynous creatures and thankfully that’s changed a bit now. I think if that’s all girls ever saw, it wouldn’t be great. However this ad is for slim fit trousers and shock horror, some women really are very slim and no doubt might have trouble finding clothes to suit. The woman in the photo doesn’t look starved, she just looks like a naturally slim, small framed person. Seems like a massive overreaction from the ASA.

I mean, no. People are not complaining because just looking at a picture of a thin person is "going to make us all lose our minds."

They're complaining because there's a decades-long issue with advertisers using unusually thin people to model clothes, over time this tendency has had a negative impact on how society views womens' bodies, and people expect better from this particular brand.

Personally I think she's simply a slim model whose thinness has been exaggerated by the camera angle, and I wouldn't have bothered to complain about it, but I also understand the perspective of people who objected. Apart from anything else, it's difficult to know what clothes will look like on when they're modelled by people who are significantly thinner than average.

She looks unhealthily thin.

No, it wasn't banned because "thin people are unhealthy."

Why was it banned then, if this level of thin isnt sometjing theyre trying to prevent people from aspiring to ( hence the ban )? As I say I'm Slavic and this is normal and healthy.

I think it was ridiculous to ban the advert. She’s a slim, healthy looking woman. Clothes look better modelled by thin people. It’s daft to complain.

Can't you see the different between one specific image and "the notion that thin people are unhealthy"?

Yep, this. ^

I can't access the article but everything is banned nowadays...I heard "slim shady" for the first time in decades on the radio at the weekend and I think that there was more censored out of it than in! (Of course I filled in the blanks car karaoke style!)

Meh. It’s the ASA. They’ll ‘ban’ anything to keep themselves in the news. The ASA is a limited company, not a government body. It has no power to ban anything. It’s just a feeble excuse for a ‘self-regulator’.

If there’s a genuine scandal - like online scams - they can do nothing. So they go for this sort of thing to get noticed. The ASA’s best ignored.

😆

Ooo ok I seriously think i needed to rtft. Apologies to anyone I've offended. Will ask mumsnet to delete x