Not On My Doormat!
I am aiming to raise awareness of the harm that unsolicited dieting advice can cause, by focussing on the posting of promotional materials through letterboxes and into people's homes.
Clearly, there are many areas to focus on regarding the advertising of diets and diet companies, and regarding diet-culture, anti-fat bias and weight stigma more generally. However, I believe it's one area that is worth trying to change!
Thank you for your interest and please do consider taking part, perhaps via one of the methods below, should you wish to and feel able.
Suggested action to take...
If you would like to support the Not On My Doormat (NOMD) Campaign, you can do so in a number of ways. For example:
Complain to the ASA
You can complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about various forms of advertising via their website. You can complain about the method and/or about the content of advertisement material.
"No Dieting Ads" sign
You could stick a notice to your letterbox or front door (if you have one) indicating you don't want to receive information about dieting services or products. You can be as polite or as expressive as you like!
Spread the Word
You could talk about this campaign or use social media to spread the word - the more people who take part, the more likely we will see positive results. You could also write to influential others to request support, e.g. local mental health charities, businesses, or your local MP.
Complain to the Business
You could complain directly to the dieting company who have posted unwanted advertising through your letterbox. There is a template below - please feel free to use it as it is, edit it, use it for ideas to get you started... or ignore it altogether!
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"Not On My Doormat!
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I am contacting you to voice my objection to receiving unsolicited dieting advertisements through my letterbox.
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I believe that this indiscriminate method of advertising dieting services or products is unethical and causes significant harm to many people.
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For example, people vulnerable to, experiencing, or working to overcome disordered eating, eating disorders, and body image difficulties may likely be triggered by having a call to dieting posted into their home.
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Additionally, the act of posting weight-stigmatising material into people’s living environments is discriminatory against people in larger bodies – it is a manifestation of, and it perpetuates, anti-fat bias.
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Further, it can be considered to be racist (given the historical roots of weight stigma) and as discriminatory against various other groups of people given their increased likelihood of being at higher weights (e.g. those with less financial wealth, many neuro-divergent individuals, and people with certain health conditions, disabilities and genetic profiles).
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For the above reasons, I believe your marketing strategy is more than likely actively contributing to poor mental and physical health outcomes amongst many of those who receive your unrequested advertising materials.
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Given the sharp increase in mental health difficulties - including eating disorders - over recent years, and the increasingly insufficient availability of appropriate services - it seems important that companies such as yours enact social responsibility to minimise the harm they can cause. I hope you may consider this perspective.
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In addition to standing against your marketing method, I also believe that your promotional material contains misinformation and false advertising regarding the likelihood of me, or anyone, being able to achieve/maintain significant weight loss, and the supposed benefits even if this were possible.
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Worse, nothing in your material informs the reader of the significant harm that dieting can cause, for example by commonly triggering eating disorders, and/or by precipitating weight-cycling, which is known to be detrimental to health and a likely cause of many physical health difficulties that are so often, and far too simplistically, attributed to levels of body fat per se.
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If you wish to understand more about the harm that dieting can (and so often does) cause, and the above points, please refer to the significant body of research and literature on this topic that has been developing now over a number of decades. For example:
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Aphramor, L. Validity of claims made in weight management research: a narrative review of dietetic articles. Nutr J 9, 30 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-9-30
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Bacon, L., Aphramor, L. Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift. Nutr J 10, 9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9
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O’Hara, L., & Taylor, J. (2018). What’s Wrong With the ‘War on Obesity?’ A Narrative Review of the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm and Development of the 3C Framework to Build Critical Competency for a Paradigm Shift. Sage Open, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018772888
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Tylka TL, Annunziato RA, Burgard D, Daníelsdóttir S, Shuman E, Davis C, Calogero RM. The weight-inclusive versus weight-normative approach to health: evaluating the evidence for prioritizing well-being over weight loss. J Obes. 2014;2014:983495. doi: 10.1155/2014/983495. Epub 2014 Jul 23. PMID: 25147734; PMCID: PMC4132299.
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Thank you for your time and attention."
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