Next ad banned for 'unhealthily thin' model

[Bamboozled5]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/feb/12/next-ad-banned-over-unhealthily-thin-model-in-digitally-altered-leggings?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Unfortunately I can't paste the photo so hope you can read it!

Is this model really so very thin that this ad should be banned? While she evidently has no excess fat, I'm not sure she is 'unhealthily' thin. I think we have normalised being overweight and obese which are at least as unhealthy.

I'm the same height as this model with BMI 22 and have much more padding. So I would say her BMI is probably below 20 which is technically underweight. I just found this ban interesting as to me she doesn't look extremely thin.

Of course it was right to ban it. Her legs look unhealthily thin due to digital manipulation. That sends a terrible message to girls and women, as if we should be aspiring to look like the altered model. It’s also just so annoying because most women, including slim women, have bottoms, hips, shapely stomachs and shapely legs, and I really want retailers to show how the clothes would fit! This is especially the case where so many of us shop online these days.

I was an inpatient in an eating disorders unit many years ago. What shocked me on admission was how many of the inpatients looked what would have been considered ‘enviably slim’ rather than ‘skeletal’. Of course there were some people in wheelchairs who looked extremely unwell, but there were also people who wouldn’t have been looked twice at on the street, who were actually very underweight, but we have been taught to view that as ‘slim’ and ‘healthy’. One person had been modelling right up until her admission.

And the target BMI for maintenance was 20, not 18. BMI below 20 wasn’t accepted as a maintenance goal.

Right. So what of people whose natural BMI (because it is well accepted now that medically this cannot be an absolute measure as it is so distorted if you are tall, have slender bone structure etc, or at the other end of the scale happen to be short, stocky and muscly) is under 20, yet this IS the healthy weight for their body? For some people, no matter how much they eat, they stay this weight as it is their natural, healthy build.

How is it ok to say this "won't be accepted"?

Again, read the thread. The investigation findings quoted in the article clearly state that her body shape was not altered. The ASA didn't like that the angle of the photo accentuated her natural build and deemed a photo of her from this angle "unacceptable".

That, like your comment, is body shaming. There is no other way to describe it and doing this, publicising it and irresponsible journalists writing articles endorsing this body shaming, it what is unacceptable. It's just as damaging as what the ASA claimed to be trying to prevent by doing so.

Then the nasty comments from many about how she "looks unwell", when the ASA specifically stated that actually she doesn't, it's just her natural build. The comments like your own implying her legs aren't "shapely", just because they may be a different shape to yours. That according to you this woman doesn't "have a bottom", just because it may be smaller than yours. It's really spiteful and unpleasant. Imagine if she reads this thread?

So many people pretend to be oblivious to their hypocrisy on this, evident by their endorsement of these double standards: that it's ok to insult and body shame some women because apparently this will make other women feel better about their own insecurities.

I think if you saw someone who actually looked like this irl (which even the model doesn't) you'd think they looked very ill.

This type of thing. It's unpleasant beyond belief.

One wonders how a woman with a more curvy figure would feel if somebody commented like this on images of her. Strange that people think this is acceptable in one case and not the other.

The photo has been taken to make the legs look long, the foot looks long too.

I don't think the photo has been doctored, it's the angle it has been taken, bit like how estate agents make rooms look bigger

But the image isn't accurate to what the model actually looks like because it's been photoshopped. That's why it was banned. So it's not the same thing. That's like saying that those people who say Barbie has unrealistic proportions are body-shaming women who look like Barbie.

Exactly @BobnLen . It's perspective!

Perhaps next we'll have people with small feet complaining that the perspective of the photo accentuates that her feet are larger than those of a woman who is 5'4" - despite this being necessary so that she doesn't topple over when there's a gust of wind - because it makes short women feel inadequate about their smaller feet so it should be banned.

That would make the same amount of sense. This refusal to accept that people are naturally different shapes and sizes is bizarre and the hypocrisy involved in berating and insulting another woman's appearance while simultaneously claiming it is to protect women from being shamed about their bodies is cognitive dissonance in the extreme.

But the image isn't accurate to what the model actually looks like because it's been photoshopped. That's why it was banned. So it's not the same thing. That's like saying that those people who say Barbie has unrealistic proportions are body-shaming women who look like Barbie.

The article was posted and quotes from the article have been posted and repeated several times on the thread already. Her body shape was not altered in the image. This is what the ASA investigation concluded.

I think I should start a campaign to get women with large breasts banned from modelling underwear. What if it gives someone with smaller breasts a complex? This cannot be allowed! Some of the photos even accentuate how large their breasts are, deliberately! This must be banned! It might encourage young girls to get breast implants!!

Quite clearly, this would be ridiculous. Which is why the ASA's decision on this and everybody who is supporting it is also being ridiculous.

Nobody stays at a certain weight ‘no matter how much they eat’. That’s not how it works, otherwise we’d have no overweight people.

It's the editing I don't like. But evidently this woman is naturally tall and thin, which isn't a crime.

Oh, and @StupidBitchy the issue with Barbie is that NO women have the proportions of the dolls, because it is physically impossible. The dolls are more like a cartoon caricature of a woman's body.

That is in no way comparable to this issue, which is the a real woman's actual body has been deemed "unacceptable" by the ASA because they don't like how it looks from certain angles.

I'd describe her as "very slim" or "thin" but not "unhealthily thin." She doesn't look gaunt, malnourished or ill.

Nobody stays at a certain weight ‘no matter how much they eat’. That’s not how it works, otherwise we’d have no overweight people.

Some people have very fast metabolisms. I mean, if you want to be pedantic I'm not saying that if they say on a sofa and ate as many pastries and burgers and sweets as they could all day for 5 years that they wouldn't put on weight. Most probably haven't tried that. Or that if they ate nothing they wouldn't eventually waste away and die like any animal. What I'm saying is that some people have naturally slim builds and fast metabolisms so can eat what they like without thinking much about it and their weight barely ever changes at all, for decades.

There is a vast variation in human build, physiology and metabolism and I think making spiteful comments about people who are naturally tall and slim and healthy like that is just as nasty and damaging as it would be to mock someone who was short and stocky in build and had a slow metabolism so who naturally had a higher than average BMI.

Yeah fair enough I misread with the bit about the jeans being altered.
Even so, they're saying that the angles were used to present the body shape as being one that they deemed looked unhealthy so it's not just me saying that. So while it wasn't photoshop in that respect it is playing with angles to show the body in a way that doesn't look like the model in real life.
So don't get angry at me when, although I was wrong about how they did it, I did say that the model herself doesn't look like the photo and that is in essence why it was banned. I'm not being nasty about her or anyone else as you've implied, I've speculated that people see so many adjusted/specially angled/whatever images these days that it throws off perspective when someone would look ill in real life, they don't on-screen.

@StupidBitchy everyone looks different from different angles in real life and in photos. That's my entire point.

They have admitted that the model is not unhealthy. Not underweight for her build. No protruding bones, doesn't look gaunt.

They have admitted that her body shape is naturally represented in the photo, it has not been altered.

They have then concluded that the image should be banned because they don't like that the angle the photo was taken from accentuates the fact she is tall and slim. They deem her body "unacceptable" to the point where images of it should be banned, if it is viewed from a certain angle, because apparently they view being tall and slim something shameful that must not be accentuated and that this is so shameful the image must be banned.

That is entirely the problem: their rationale for this rests entirely on body shaming a tall and slim (but healthy) woman.

And then claimed that looking very tall and slim makes you look unhealthy (even when it is admitted you are not).

This is an extremely damaging message to send to many, many women and girls who will also have this natural body shape. Yet these people claim to be doing this - and publicly shaming this model in this manner - to prevent body shaming and damage to women's body images.

Clearly that only matters for some women, and not others.

Absolute hypocrisy.

I disagree. From what I understand of this, they're not saying that being tall and slim is 'shameful' and yes of course angles change everything, that's the whole point of this. I was acknowledging that you were right when you pointed out that it was angles and not photoshop to avoid any misunderstandings because it's clearly a sensitive subject.
They're saying that when Next use a photograph that they've exaggerated the thinness and length of the model's legs for, it represents an ideal of tallness and thinness that is present in society that encourages an unhealthy pursuit of these traits in those for whom it is unattainable whilst remaining healthy, which is alot of women. So actually the opposite to what you've said. They're not saying 'your model is too tall and thin and we don't like it so we say no pics'. That would be body shaming.
I'm not getting into this any more because I've finished my point and that's all I really care to do at this point, and only because you came at me. Have a good night ✌

They haven't 'deemed her body to be unacceptable', they're not 'body-shaming' her. There are rules the Advertising Standards Authority enforce about images used in advertising, one of these is that the model should not appear to be unhealthily thin. Because being unhealthily thin, is unhealthy, so should not be encouraged in advertising (because it is damaging for society as a whole, and for young people who are developing their self image, to be bombarded with an unhealthy body shape put forward as something to emulate). It's just like in adverts for cars, they're not allowed to appear to be speeding.

This has been an issue in the fashion industry for decades. In some other countries, eg France, models actually have to have a health check from a doctor to verify their healthy BMI.

I understand that you've experienced nasty comments from people in your life, but you are projecting here.

No. They have said that because this photo accentuates her natural slim and tall build it should be banned. And that this being accentuated, in their view, makes a woman whom they admit looks healthy in this photograph and others - no protruding bones, healthy and not at all gaunt complexion - look unhealthy simply because it accentuates her tallness and slimness i.e. it is implicit that they are making a judgement that this is unhealthy.

They admit she is healthy. They admit the photo is an accurate representation of her body shape and that hasn't been altered. They have then stated explicitly that despite this they deem how her body looks from a certain angle to be so unacceptable that images of it must be removed. It is literally the definition of body shaming.

Too darn right they should ban digitally 'enhanced' photos like this. Her legs look totally out of proportion to the rest of her. They look stretched out. Normally, the measurement from your elbow to your fingers is around the same as from your knee to your ankle. Her legs are way longer than that. And the left thigh is thinner than the right.

How odd that the ad is banned yet there’s images of the ad archived in these articles…the ad pretty much still exists!

It is possible that you are reading too much into this? From my understanding they compared different images of the same model from different angles and accepted the other images are fine, but this specific one was an issue. I got the impression they weren’t critiquing the model but the editing of the image giving an unrealistic impression of the product.