UK clamps down on ads for 'miracle' slimming products
urging consumers to 'wise up' to misleading advertisements for
'miracle cure' health, beauty and slimming products. The market for
slimming products alone was estimated to be worth £5.2 billion
(€8.2bn) in 2001.
The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) yesterday launched a campaign urging consumers to 'wise up' to misleading advertisements and to beware of claims about 'miracle cure' health, beauty and slimming products.
The OFT, which protects UK consumer interests and ensures that businesses are fair and competitive, said it is especially concerned about advertisements which promise instant weight loss without reducing calorie intake, 'miracle cures' for serious illnesses or other conditions such as baldness 'overnight transformations' as a result of using a product.
The organisation said advertisements are misleading when they contain false promises about what products can do, concealing or leaving out important facts or creating a false impression in other ways.
Last year the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) dealt with nearly 1,200 complaints about health, beauty and slimming products. A worldwide sweep of the Internet earlier this year identified over 1,000 sites with potentially misleading advertising in the health sector. The market for slimming products alone was estimated to be worth £5.2 billion (€8.2bn) in 2001 and is forecast to reach £6.6 billion by 2006.
The campaign comes shortly after a report by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that false and misleading claims for weight loss products are growing as more and more new products enter the booming market. The supplements industry has since moved to issue voluntary guidelines on advertising.
Launching the OTC campaign, deputy director general Penny Boys said: "Advertising is a vital means of communicating with consumers and for making markets work well. Our campaign targets misleading advertising. The best way to prevent misleading advertisements is to help consumers not to fall for them."
The campaign includes posters, key facts on the advertising industry and advertising controls and information in the form of a tabloid newsletter, available free of charge to consumers, schools and trading standards departments.
