New Instagram Feature Lets You Hide Weight Loss Adverts – Here’s How To Activate It

17 August 2022, 15:29

Instagram has a new feature to let you hide diet-related content. Picture: Getty

By Kathryn Knight

Instagram’s new tool gives you more control over content relating to diets and body weight.

Instagram have taken steps to hide potentially triggering content around body weight control.

After social media campaigns from a string of influencers, Instagram introduced a feature earlier this year to allow users to ‘see less’ of weight loss content that could be considered harmful.

Here’s how to make the change:

Go to settings on your Instagram profile
Tap ads
Select Ad topics
In the ‘search all topics’ toolbar, search ‘body weight control’
Click the topic Select ‘see less’

Some users have struggled to find ‘body weight control’ in their options, but others said searching terms like ‘diet’ and ‘weight loss’ brought up plenty of options to change.

Instagram users have more freedom on the content they're served with. Picture: Getty

Instagram users can opt-out of seeing diet-related content. Picture: Getty

Body positivity campaigner Katie Budenberg was amongst the influencers using her platform to urge Instagram to make the change.

She said in her Change.org petition: “It's no secret that the aim of a weight-loss ad is to make you feel inadequate in your body so that you are persuaded to pay the company large amounts of money to help you lose weight. To some, these ads may be harmless and they can scroll on but for some these ads are triggering and dangerous."

She added: "This is why we are asking that Instagram adds the option to not see weight loss ads; this setting already exists for other potentially triggering topics, such as alcohol and parenting, and should be extended to weight-loss. This setting would make Instagram a safer, and therefore a more inclusive, place for those with a history of disordered eating and/or body image issues."

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