This City Is Giving Bikini Ads the Boot to Boost Body Image

Korsvika beach in Trondheim. (Photo: Flickr)

Planning a summer getaway to Trondheim? Well don’t expect to see any bikini babes or ripped men — on advertisements at least. The third-largest city in Norway has banned imagery featuring scantily clad models in publicly owned space in an effort to combat negative body image issues.

The policy, which was passed by city officials, also prohibits anything offensive or discriminatory against groups or individuals. Additionally, any campaigns in which retouching is used must be marked as such.

“We need to think about what types of advertising we help to spread. We should not be spreading images that contribute to an increased body image pressure,” city official Ottar Michelsen told NRK. He noted that the government bears a responsibility to protect its citizens from the often debilitating and damaging perception that they need to to achieve the “perfect body.”

So can a measure such as this one really make a difference? According to Sari Shepphird, PhD, a psychologist and body image expert, actions such as these can be critically important in sending a message that health and mental health are considered more important than a sales image. “Acknowledging the potential negative impacts of these ads and making a public statement by setting guidelines for advertising that promote health and well-being rather than unrealistic images that convey a false reality can in turn serve to underscore support for healthy behavior and self care,” she tells Yahoo Style.

Shepphird notes that multiple studies in the past few decades have affirmed this, recognizing that images portrayed in popular media can have a direct impact on what cultures consider to be the thin ideal. Furthermore, that thin ideal even has an influence on beliefs that affect individuals in real time, like body image dissatisfaction and disordered eating.

Legislation such as this has been passed in other parts of the world as well. In December, France’s National Assembly passed a bill stipulating that digitally altered images of models must indicate in text that it has been changed from its original form. Israeli lawmakers in 2012 adopted the “Photoshop law,” similarly declaring that retouched images must be noted in text, and fashion and commercial models should have healthy bodies. The United Kingdom has the Advertising Standards Authority, an industry watchdog that accepts constituent complaints.

The United States hasn’t made any similar moves yet — but H.R. 4445, otherwise known as the Truth in Advertising Bill, might change that. Introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives in 2016, the proposal asks that the Federal Trade Commission develop a “regulatory framework” for ads that drastically alter those pictured in them.

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