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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking with Ofcom to protect young women and girls from damaging diet and weight-loss adverts on social media.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is responsible for regulating the creative content, media placement and audience targeting of advertising in the UK. The Advertising Codes which it administers contain dedicated rules for adverts relating to weight control or reduction, including prohibiting such adverts from being directed at or containing anything likely to appeal particularly to under-18s or those for whom weight reduction would produce a potentially harmful body weight. The ASA has banned a number of influencer posts promoting prescription-only weight loss injections, and also ran a call for evidence last year on advertising giving rise to potential body image concerns.

The Online Safety Act will require all user-to-user and search services accessed by children to put in place systems and processes designed to prevent children from encountering user-generated content, including advertising, that is harmful to them. Content that promotes, encourages or provides instructions for eating disorders has been designated as a type of ‘priority’ content harmful to children under the Act. The Act also requires providers to put in place age-appropriate protections from any other content, even where this has not been designated as ‘priority’ harmful content, that risks causing significant harm to an appreciable number of children.