boxing day 2012: Don't write about fad diets': Women's minister Jo Swinson tells magazines not to promote 'irresponsible' post-Christmas weight loss tips

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Don't write about fad diets': Women's minister Jo Swinson tells magazines not to promote 'irresponsible' post-Christmas weight loss tips

MP Jo Swinson urged magazines to ditch fad diets in new year editions

In an open letter she said editors should encourage 'reasonable expectations' about weight loss

PUBLISHED: 05:01 EST, 27 December 2012 | UPDATED: 05:55 EST, 27 December 2012

Appeal: Jo Swinson co-founded the Campaign for Body Confidence

Magazines have been urged not to promote 'miracle diets' to people worrying about losing weight after Christmas indulgence.

Minister for Women and Equalities Jo Swinson has written an open letter to women's, men's, health, celebrity and gossip magazines appealing for them to 'shed the fad diets and fitness myths' in their new year editions.

She appealed to editors to drop 'irresponsible, short-term solutions' and promote ways to lose weight healthily.

Her appeal comes at a time when many people try to lose weight after a period of over-eating at Christmas and magazines are full of ways to shift pounds in the new year.

The Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire wrote: 'I am sure that you want to promote a healthy lifestyle for your readers but at this time of year in particular far too much of magazine coverage tends to focus on irresponsible, short-term solutions and encourages readers to jump on fad diet bandwagons.

'As editors you owe more to your readers than the reckless promotion of unhealthy solutions to losing weight.

'If your aim is to give practical, sensible advice about losing weight - and not how to drop a stone in five days - you should encourage reasonable expectations, instead of dangerous ones, along with exercise and healthy eating.'

She ends the letter by suggesting a new year resolution to 'celebrate the beauty of diversity in body shape, skin colour, size and age'.

Ms Swinson today added: 'Given that most diets fail within a very short time, it is irresponsible for magazines to offer "tips, tricks and simple steps" so that people can be thin. Not healthy or vibrant, just thin.

'One resolution that is actually worth making, for all of us, is to resolve with friends, family and colleagues to challenge the default setting of self-criticism, and help each other to do so.'

Ms Swinson co-founded the Campaign for Body Confidence in 2010 with fellow MP Lynne Featherstone.

It promotes diversity of women's bodies in the media, as well as body confidence education in schools and honesty in advertising.

The group's founders believe the 'pressure to conform to impossible stereotypes' is damaging to both men and women and increases low-self-esteem, depression and eating disorders.