Truth in Advertising Means Truth—Including About Harm

A man stands in awe, gazing up at the vibrant lights and towering billboards of Times Square at night.

Deceptive advertising causes measurable harm. People should be made aware of that harm so that they can give informed consent to absorbing its consequences.

Extreme Photoshop sells bodies and faces that do not exist. Consumers—especially young people—internalize the message that their real bodies are defective. That is misrepresentation with real consequences intended for monetary gain, not creativity.

Providing a platform (or pedestal) to physically and mentally unhealthy models and brand representatives also causes societal harm. Advertising should not reward extreme thinness, unsafe body modification, or disordered behavior and imply that behavior is “aspirational.” No industry should be allowed to profit from harming the people it puts on display.

Sexualization is another problem hiding in plain sight. When products are sold through objectification—often unrelated to the product—the message is simple: your value lies in being consumable. That messaging damages self-worth and distorts expectations around intimacy and power. We know this because we’ve measured it.

So why hasn’t this changed?

The answer is simple: neither governments nor corporations have strong incentives to act, and consumers/voters often lack the ability to use their collective bargaining power to use dollars or vote to push their preferences.

1. Corporations profit when insecurity drives consumption.

2. Governments benefit from the economic output of those profits and the tax revenue they generate. Mental health costs are diffuse, delayed, and absorbed by individuals—not the advertisers who cause them.

3. People resist regulation on behalf of corporations in the name of freedom without understanding that freedom should not mean free.

That incentive structure explains the gap between what we know and what we regulate.

Truth in advertising should mean:

• No fake bodies without disclosure

• No profit from physical harm

• No default objectification as a sales strategy

  
  

Companies cannot keep extracting value from public deterioration. And if governments can’t keep pretending this isn’t a societally. harmful problem.

Balanced regulation of deceptive advertising isn’t radical. It’s overdue.