Advertisment
Advertising in the Health & Fitness Section of a regional newspaper:
“Lose up to 2 stone in 10 weeks!
Your best weight loss ever by fixing your metabolism
Easy to follow 7 day food plans Plenty of everyday foods
The right exercise the right way Private weekly weigh-ins
Lose 5 stone in 20 weeks Lose 1 1/4 stone in 6 weeks!”
Advertising Article in the Health & Fitness Section of a regional newspaper: Heading – “The Power Of Metabolic Weight Loss”
Extracts of the article stated:
Paragraph 1:
“With total focus on fixing your metabolism, System 10 can transform your weight loss, energy, sleep, health, and much more. A good metabolism is the foundation of everything you are. A good metabolism gets you burning more fat every hour, 24 hours a day. Nothing can beat it for results. It is your weight loss master switch.”
Paragraph 3:
“Your metabolism faults are also at the root cause of poor sleep, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ME, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, IBS, constipation, and many other health problems you might be suffering from. By fixing your metabolism you will get huge benefits. Indeed, you will never get better unless you fix your metabolism first.”
Paragraph 4:
“System 10 analyses your metabolism and then provides the food, exercise and nutrition plan to fix it. Let System 10 transform you by losing two stone in 10 weeks. Nobody is more committed to your weight loss.”
Complaint
The complainant objected to the advertising article on the following grounds:
The complainant referred to two claims in the advertising article:
“Your metabolism faults are also at the root cause of poor sleep, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ME, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, IBS, constipation, and many other health problems you might be suffering from. By fixing your metabolism you will get huge benefits. Indeed, you will never get better unless you fix your metabolism first.”
And the claim that stated, “System 10 provides the food, exercise, and nutrition plan to fix it.”
Issue 1:
The complainant said while there were studies that had found metabolism problems in ME or CFS, there were also studies showing brain inflammation and defects with red blood. The complainant said that there was no one study categorically proving what caused ME and that therefore there was no known effective treatment for ME yet.
The complainant considered that the advertising was speculative and questioned whether the System 10 approach would be suitable to deal with the relevant metabolic problems in ME or CFS.
Issue 2:
The complainant objected to paragraph 4 of the article on the grounds that it could cause harm to an ME patient. The complainant stated that there were studies showing the determinant of exercise on an ME patient and that one of the main symptoms of ME was post exertional malaise which meant that a patients’ symptoms worsened after exercise and in some cases, patients had gone from being functional to being wheelchair bound as a result of undertaking exercise.
Issue 3:
The ASAI Executive requested comments from the advertisers on the weight loss claims contained within the advertisement that featured beside the advertising article.
Response
The advertisers stated that they were always very careful about what they say and how they say it and that anything that they did say was normally well documented. They considered that the complainant had misunderstood or misread a clearly written article which stated that by improving your metabolism you can help/improve all conditions, not just ME and that this was the same foundation on which all medicine was based too.
In response to the issues raised by the complainant:
Issue 1:
The advertisers stated that all health and medical problems were due to faults in the body, and that body problems were one and the same thing as saying metabolism faults as they were intrinsically the same thing and were inseparable for every condition known to man or woman. They said that they were saying the exact thing that all medicine was based on that body faults, a.k.a. metabolism problems were the cause of all problems and they considered that this was common sense. In response to the complainant’s reference to brain inflammation and defects with red blood cells as being a contradiction to their claims, they considered that these were themselves metabolism problems and therefore, exactly what they were talking about.
The advertisers stated that their claim had stated “you will get huge benefits” and that at no point had they referred to fixing or curing ME or CFS. They said that the “fix it” mentioned in the last sentence of paragraph 3 clearly referred to fixing your metabolism and not fixing ME or CFS. They said that they referred to “fixing your metabolism first” which they considered clearly implied that there may be other things needed to be done too and they were not claiming in any way that this was the whole answer. However, they said that it would not be untrue to state that if a person fixed their body completely (or metabolism), it would naturally mean that their ME or CFS would not exist.
They considered that it was clear that the complainant unfortunately defined metabolism very narrowly and therefore, incorrectly as they said it actually encompassed extremely broad body functions, systems and problems.
Issue 2:
They said that while it was true that exercise could be problematic for ME when it was uncontrolled, unmonitored or overdone, when it was controlled, structured and gradually progressive, it was very beneficial and that was exactly the way they worked with all their clients and had only positive feedback. They said that it was something they as professionals were very aware of and careful of.
Issue 3:
No comment was received from the advertisers on this aspect of the complaint.
Further information:
The ASAI Executive reminded the advertisers of the requirement under the Code to substantiate all claims made within their advertising.
In response the advertisers requested assistance from the Executive in identifying the wording that was incorrect in their advertising.
They also reiterated that they had not made any claim about fixing ME or CFS or any other condition as they had only referred to fixing a person’s metabolism (a.k.a body) with good food and exercise and nutrition as bringing benefits to all conditions and that this was clearly standard advice routinely given out day in and day out from all doctors and in all medical texts.
The advertisers did not provide any further response or substantiation.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld In Part.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. The Committee drew attention to the requirement in the Code at Section 2.4 (c) that compliance with the Code is assessed in the light of a marketing communication’s probable effect when taken as a whole and in context.
Issue 1 – Complaint Upheld:
The Committee noted that no documentary evidence had been supplied to substantiate the claims made within the advertising and in the absence of such evidence, the Committee considered that the advertisement was in breach of Section 11.1 of the Code.
Issue 2 – Complaint Not Upheld:
The Committee noted the concerns that exercise could be detrimental to people with ME but that the claim in the advertisement was in relation to the provision of a plan rather than a suggestion that unsupervised exercise should be undertaken. They did not consider the advertisement had breached the Code on the basis suggested by the complaint.
Issue 3 – Complaint Upheld:
The Complaints Committee expressed concern at the advertisers’ failure to respond to this aspect of the case. They reminded them that there was an onus on advertisers to ensure that their advertising was in conformity with the Code. In the absence of a response to this aspect of the case, the Committee concluded that the advertisement was in breach of Sections 3.10, 12.2, 12.13 and 12.14 of the Code.
ACTION REQUIRED:
The advertising should not reappear in its current form. The Committee told the advertisers that they should not make the claims in any future advertising without having substantiation to hand.
