Screenshots of Cerebral ads posted on Instagram. The sites’ terms of service prohibit content that uses such images to promote health care products.
Forbes
TOAn ad that has been running on Instagram for the past few weeks shows a young woman sitting on a bed eating a toasted cake. He then cuts it short by eating a donut surrounded by popcorn, chips, donuts and other foods with the message: “Those who live by impulse, eat by impulse.” The ad goes on to suggest that obesity is five times more common among adults with ADHD, but that mental health startup Cerebral can provide “the right tools and medication to change impulsive habits.” The ad then shows the same woman smiling and eating a salad.
During the month of December, Cerebral, which connects patients with therapy and prescriptions for mental health disorders, ran more than 30 ads featuring these images, according to a Forbes analysis. On Friday, Instagram confirmed to Forbes that Cerebral had violated its policies around eating disorders and body image. “These ads violate our policies and have been removed. We do not allow content that attempts to create a negative self-perception to promote health-related products,” Meta spokeswoman Stephanie Chan said in a statement. (As of 5:30 pm, there were still four ads with the images remaining in Cerebral’s Facebook ad transparency library.)
Cerebral did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The startup, which has served more than 200,000 patients since its launch in 2020, raised $300 million led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a valuation of $4.8 billion in December. Forbes previously reported the unicorn had reneged on the salaries and health benefits of hundreds of his therapists over the summer. One of Cerebral’s main spokespeople is Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, who joined as director of impact last year and appears frequently on its social media channels. The company often runs at least 90 Instagram ads at any given time, according to its ad transparency page. Many of the ads, promoting weight loss, ADHD and anxiety medications, are specifically targeted at young women.
Both Instagram and its parent company Facebook have come under fire in recent months for knowing that images on the platform could be harmful, especially when it comes to body image and mental health among teenage girls, according to internal documents reported. for the first time for the Wall Street Journal. In February 2021, Instagram publicly announced new policies on eating disorders that prohibit “content that promotes or encourages self-harm and eating disorders.” The company also prohibits “before and after” images and ads that use a negative self-perception; Ads for weight-loss products and cosmetic procedures are limited to people 18 years of age and older.
“Viewing images of people engaging in eating disorder behaviors can be really challenging for people who are actively struggling or at risk of struggling with an eating disorder,” says Lauren Smolar, senior director of programs at the National Eating Disorders Association. . “We recommend, where possible, avoiding such images.”
But this type of content still shows up on Instagram, as Cerebral’s ad campaign demonstrates. Ads ran with titles such as “How ADHD Affects Eating Habits,” “How ADHD Can Cause Impulsive Eating,” and “My ADHD Made Me Overeat.” Although the young woman remained the same in almost all the ads, the first few seconds of the ads varied, even showing the woman holding a cake with both hands and other images such as a glass full of chocolate milk, a giant slice of cake , a plate full of corn chips, or a cup full of Cheez-Its.
The images invoke overeating and an unhealthy relationship with food, which can trigger people struggling with eating disorders. But the other problem is that depicting eating disorders through specific imagery can create a sense that only people who crave certain foods in that way have a problem, says Smolar. “And that can be very difficult for people who don’t identify with those particular images to then recognize that they themselves may be worthy of treatment.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, you can get help by calling the National Eating Disorder Helpline: 800-931-2237.
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