Children bombarded with weight loss drug ads online, says commissioner
Summary
Children in England are being exposed to ads for weight loss drugs, diet products, and cosmetic procedures online despite such advertising being banned, according to a report by the children's commissioner. The ads are harmful to young people's self-esteem and body image, prompting calls for stronger regulation of social media platforms and better enforcement of existing rules.
Solution / Mitigation
Dame Rachel's report suggested several explicit solutions: amending the Online Safety Act (OSA, a set of laws requiring online platforms to keep users safe) to include a "clear duty of care" for social media platforms to stop showing adverts to children; adding changes to Ofcom's Children's Code of Practice to "explicitly protect children from body stigma content"; and strengthening regulation and enforcement of online sales of age-restricted products. The government is also considering "bold measures to protect children online", including potentially banning social media for under 16s, according to a government spokesperson quoted in the article.
Classification
Original source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89kl834nv9o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
First tracked: February 12, 2026 at 02:20 PM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 95%