Adverts for breast enhancement surgery have been banned during commercial breaks for ITV’s hit series Love Island.
Every year, more and more people are getting cosmetic surgery
The Advertising Standards Agency received complaints that the MYA Cosmetic Surgery adverts, which showed women dancing and laughing by a swimming pool, were exploiting young women’s insecurities and trivialising cosmetic surgery.
The Mental Health Foundation was among those who complained.
The ban comes after controversy surrounding cosmetic surgery has been in the headlines in recent weeks. 2 women have died whilst undergoing the ‘brazilian butt lift’ surgery, sparking debate about why women feel the need to go to extreme lengths to alter their body image.
Statistics published on the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons website, from February this year showed that the number of breast enhancement surgeries - both augmentation and reduction - had risen since 2016.
The analysis showed that women had 91% of all cosmetic procedures last year, and 8,238 of these procedures were for breast augmentation, a 7% rise from 2016.
Breast reduction and fat transfer surgeries were also in the top ten most carried out cosmetic procedures in the U.K, suggesting that there is still a huge market and a need amongst women to alter the way they look.
So it begs the question, why are advertisers within the beauty industry still not adhering to the social stigmas related to mental health?
Body image is clearly a huge contributor to mental health problems in young women, and although there have been notable changes to move towards including all body shapes in fashion advertising, there is still work to be done in ‘normalising’ all women’s body types.
Thankfully, there are celebrities in the spotlight using their platform to promote a healthy attitude towards all body types. Ashley Graham is body positive model who promotes a movement for young women to accept and love their body shape without feeling the pressures to change to meet social beauty ‘standards’.
And online fashion stores are also moving away from using the usual slimmer models to promote their clothing.
Sites like Pretty Little Thing now model their clothes on women who represent all different shapes and sizes - a positive move towards eradicating the expectation amongst young women that they have to look a certain way to be happy with themselves.
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