Asa Overrules Objections To PETA’S ‘Man With Moobs’ Billboard

For Immediate Release:
15 December 2009

Contact:
Sam Glover 020 7357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

Glasgow – The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has tossed out challenges to a PETA billboard that was erected in Glasgow and showed an overweight man with enlarged breasts next to the tagline “Dude Looks Like a Lady? Lose the Breasts. Go Vegetarian”. The ASA received complaints claiming that the ad was “misleading” and “offensive”. After weighing the arguments put forward by PETA, the ASA determined that the ad was “unlikely to mislead” and “unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence”, and the agency did not uphold the complaints. The ASA further noted that the public was “likely to understand the ad in the context of the negative impact that obesity could have on the male body”. Transform Cosmetic Surgery Group has noted that male breast removal surgery is extremely popular in Scotland. Scotland has one of the highest obesity rates among OECD countries, second only to the US.

PETA argued that the ad’s purpose was to warn that a diet rich in meat, eggs and dairy products could cause obesity and unwanted breast development in men. PETA pointed out that the tagline “Go Vegetarian” made it clear that the condition depicted could be addressed through an improved diet.

Meat-eaters are nine times as likely to be obese as vegans are. According to Ken Stewart, a surgeon at Spire Murrayfield Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland’s obesity problem is fuelling the demand for breast-reduction surgery in men. Consuming meat, milk, cheese and other foods that come from animals has also been conclusively linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer.

“Even though the truth about breaking harmful eating habits may be hard to swallow, people have a right to hear it”, says PETA’s Alistair Currie. “Eating meat, dairy products and eggs is murder on animals, is bad for the planet and to put it bluntly, can make people fat.”

PETA’s correspondence with the ASA is available upon request.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk