Popular online bulletin board Pinterest has banned weight-loss ads, calling it a move against “body shaming” and protecting mental health on online platforms.
The company developed its new policy with guidance from the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), whose research shows there has been a rise in eating disorders and unhealthy eating habits in young people during the pandemic.
The platform said that they will not allow ads containing testimonials about losing weight; references to body mass indexes, or that “idealize or denigrate” certain body types.
“Across the country, people of all ages are facing challenges related to body image and mental health, particularly as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic and kick-off the summer season. We’re empowering Pinners to plan for summer without weight loss ads, so they can focus on what matters most,” Pinterest wrote in a post.
With this, Pinterest has become one of the first major online platforms to prohibit all weight-loss ads, saying it is an expansion of policies barring body shaming in advertisements.
Also, read: Plus-Size Is Just Another Size, Not A Standard!
Earlier the platform had banned ads for weight loss pills as well as procedures such as liposuction, along with imagery or language mocking body types.
The San Francisco-based company reported that the number of people using it each month around the world grew to more than 478 million in the first quarter of this year.
Pinterest has had a record for being sensible, and sensitive.
In 2016, Pinterest prohibited ads for “sensitive content including cultural appropriated and inappropriate costumes”. It stopped running political ads in 2018 and 2019. Pinterest was one of the first social media companies to block anti-vaccination content, to prevent misinformation from spreading on its platform.