Spanish Gov’t to Set Limits on Diet-Related TV Ads

Posted on Jan 21, 2010

Flickr / Lee Carson

The Spanish government is cracking down on television advertising that promotes weight-loss products and other related goods and services, including plastic surgery, by creating legislation that would bar the ads from being shown until after 10 p.m.  —KA

Advertising Age via Gawker:

Ads for diet products, some beauty treatments and plastic surgery are now officially considered more dangerous for young people than commercials for alcohol, which can be advertised from 9 p.m.
The lower chamber of Spain’s parliament has passed the law, and the upper chamber is expected to ratify it within weeks. It’s unclear when the ban will go into effect.

The new law states: “Broadcasters cannot carry advertisements for things that encourage the cult of the body and have a negative impact on self-image—such as slimming products, surgical procedures and beauty treatments—which are based on ideas of social rejection as a result of one’s physical image or that success is dependent on factors such as weight or looks.”

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.