Pinterest is banning all commercials with weight reduction language and imagery, together with advertisements that idealise or denigrate sure physique varieties, the social media firm says.
The well-liked, picture-led social community, which permits customers to create and share temper boards, stated it will additionally not permit advertisements with testimonials about weight reduction or weight reduction merchandise, or advertisements referencing physique mass index (BMI) or comparable indexes.
“This stance makes Pinterest the one main platform to ban all weight reduction advertisements. It’s an growth of our advert insurance policies which have lengthy prohibited physique shaming and harmful weight reduction merchandise or claims,” the corporate stated in a weblog submit on Thursday.
Ads selling wholesome existence, habits or health companies and merchandise are nonetheless allowed on the platform if they don’t “concentrate on weight reduction”. The firm stated it had developed the coverage with steerage from the National Eating Disorders Association.
Sarah Bromma, Pinterest’s head of coverage, stated in an interview that the rule change prioritised Pinterest customers’ “emotional and psychological well being and wellbeing, particularly these immediately impacted by consuming problems or eating regimen tradition or physique shaming”.
Weight loss manufacturers’ spending on promoting throughout TV, digital and print codecs reached $372 million between January and June 2021, up 89% in comparison with the identical interval final 12 months, in accordance with promoting intelligence agency MediaRadar. It reported a 120% enhance in year-on-year spending for weight reduction advertisements on Facebook.
Pinterest studies that greater than 60% of its customers globally are feminine. The firm has lengthy grappled with combating pro-eating dysfunction content material on its platform – since 2015 it has blocked searches for this sort of content material, and directed customers to knowledgeable organisations. The service already has guidelines agains advertisements selling weight reduction capsules and people containing before-and-after weight-loss imagery.
In April 2021 rival social community Instagram issued an apology after a “mistake” resulted in weight reduction content material being promoted to customers with consuming problems. In 2019, Instagram blocked ads promoting weight loss and cosmetic surgery for users under 18, and cracked down on posts selling content material that made “miraculous” weight reduction claims.
– With Reuters
