Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has plans to encourage advertisers to promote healthy body images.

We recognise that the pressure on young people to achieve an idealised body image is a serious issue, with wide-reaching consequences for their mental and physical wellbeing.

As set out in in the recently published Government response to the Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper, we are taking forward work on positive body image. This work will build on the commitments made in the Government response to the recent Youth Select Committee report which highlighted that increased time spent online can lead to increased exposure to images of unattainable and unrealistic beauty. The Government is also developing a package of work to tackle harmful gender norms which can occur both online and offline. This will include work with the advertising industry to encourage stereotype-free advertising.