We’ve all seen the hashtags on Instagram. Pictures of people in the gym saying they want to get beach body ready, or that they’re working towards a hot girl summer. In fact 62% of women believe the pressure to look good is now unbearable. Well, we say if you put your body on a beach, it’s ready. Times are changing, and we’re here to champion them.
Remember that billboard for that protein company? On it we saw a woman wearing a bright yellow bikini, asking us if we were beach body ready. The advertising watchdog received over 400 complaints, and it’s been used as an example of what not to do in advertising ever since. Not only does it set unrealistic body standards, but it also puts a huge amount of pressure on women who are already doing all they can to balance their life. We’ve decided to put real women unfiltered or photoshopped, showing off how sexy they look in their swimwear and owning it this summer. Our campaign shows that each body is ready for the beach no matter how it looks.
• Studies have found that 40% of teenagers have said images on social media caused them to worry about their body image. As teens spend more time than ever online this is a dangerous place and we want to disrupt the timeline to show that each body is beautiful. • 89% of adults feel a social pressure to look a certain way, we want to change the face of advertising and show a true representation of women’s bodies from around the UK.
Despite the constant pressure on us to look different, eat different and dress different, body positivity has never been more powerful. • In the last year #bodypositivity was hashtagged an incredible 7.9 million more times than #summerdiet while searches for this were also 196% higher in 2021
• Women are more confident in 2021. On Instagram, #loveyourbody has been used an incredible 5.7m times.
• Women are more confident in 2021. On Instagram, #loveyourbody has been used an incredible 5.7m times. Women are also feeling more self assured. In the UK, 79% of women say personality is more important than looks. • Between February and May 2021, searches for curves increased by 49.46%, showing that more women are looking for fashion that fits how they are, not how brands expect them to be. Sadly, that love for yourself isn’t reflected by what the high street offers. Only 11% of the women we asked said they were confident the clothes they saw online would look that way when they tried them on. The clothes we buy don’t reflect the clothes we want. The models we see them on don’t reflect us.
Find out moreShare Your Support Using The Hashtag #MakeSummerYours To Help Make A Change on our Instagram
We’re surrounded by images of ‘ideal bodies’ in the media every day. From glamorous photoshoots in glossy magazines to highly edited pictures on celebrities’ Instagrams, no matter where you look you’re likely to see flesh and figures you’re encouraged to aspire to. So it’s no wonder that 87% of women listen. What’s worse, six out of 10 women say they feel negatively about their bodies, while 61% of all adults feel very negatively about how they look the majority of the time. But those pictures aren’t real life. If we had a dedicated dietitian and fitness guru by our side 24/7, we’d either look incredible or get real annoyed, real fast. The world has bigger things to worry about, and any body that can survive that is beautiful in our books.
What’s worse is the under representation felt by adults around the UK. More than one in every two adults (57%) say they’re ‘rarely’ or ‘never seen’ themselves in images in the media or advertising, we plan to change that.
In the UK alone, 45% of women wear a dress size of 16 or more, yet only 2.2% of women in advertising are this size, instead the market continues to show us size 12s are our ideal.
In America things are even worse. The average woman in the states weighs 140 pounds and is 5’4”, while the average fashion model weighs 117 pounds and is 5’11”. Models are thinner than 98% of the population, not only promoting a look that is unrealistic, but one that is dangerously unobtainable.
We believe every body is beautiful. Your curves, your shape and your size deserves to be celebrated and it deserves to be seen. That’s why we’re championing Each Body Ready, the fight to get figures of all shapes and sizes out in the world looking scorching this summer. Join the conversation and help make the change with the hashtag #MakeSummerYours
We’re making a stand to just add sand. Our Each Body Ready campaign shows that any woman can look fantastic on the beach, no matter what size she is. We’re giving women the chance to put themselves on our advertising, showing off every curve, every line and every inch of what makes them, them. It’s time to stop the media telling us how we should look, and for us to tell them how we look already. It’s not up to anyone else to set our standards. It’s up to us to live our best life, and so long as we’re wearing a smile, the rest is just material.
The Each Body Ready campaign features 5 stunning influencers from around the UK
Methodology
We gathered data to display hard-hitting facts about images of women used in advertising
Data sources:
62% of women believe the pressure to look good is now unbearable 87% of women compare their bodies to images in the media 57% of adults reported ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ seeing themselves or people who look like them regularly reflected in images in media and advertising. 89% of adults feel a social pressure to look a certain way. 79% of women ranked personality more important than looks 40% of teenagers said images on social media caused them to worry about their body image 45% of British women are dress size 16 or more, The actual average dress size in the UK is now 16 47 of 2099 women in total (in editorials as well as in ads) were plus size women, a mere 2.2 percent
Instagram data:
The search for 'body positivity' over 'summer diet' is higher by 196% in May 2021 The search for 'curves' has seen a 49.46% increase from Feb 21 - May 21 #bodypositivity is hashtagged 7,964,400 more times than #summerdiet on instagram
