Watchdog brands Next ad ‘irresponsible’ on body image concerns
The UK’s advertising watchdog has upheld a complaint that Next used an “unhealthily thin” model to advertise a pair of leggings online.
The ruling comes just weeks after the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eating Disorders published a report describing the “alarming” rise in disorders such as anorexia and bulimia over the past decade, adding that eating disorders have “on of the largest treatment gaps in modern healthcare”.
Over one in ten 17-19-year-olds, and a fifth of young women, have an eating disorder, according to a 2023 survey.
In the ASA’s ruling on Next’s ad, it said the model “appeared unhealthily underweight in the image” and concluded that the ad was “irresponsible.”
Last year, the watchdog similarly branded Mango branded irresponsible by ASA for featuring an‘unhealthily thin’ model in an ad, as well as fashion retailer Warehouse.
ASA found the ad violated the CAP code, which states “marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society.”
The ASA said that the “pose and the lighting” of Next’s model’s “drew particular focus to her chest, where her rib cage was visible and appeared prominent, and to her legs, where her thighs and knees appeared a similar width”.
It ruled that the advert must not appear again in its current form, adding: “We told [Next] to ensure that the images in their ads were prepared responsibly and did not portray models as being unhealthily thin.”
NEXT said that the ad was created with a strong sense of responsibility to both consumers and society, adding that the creative teams at Next were mindful of including a diverse range of models.
A University of Toronto study on magazine ads featuring female fashion models found that ‘skinny women’ in ads had an immediate negative impact on a woman’s self-esteem.