Note: This advice is given by the CAP Executive about non-broadcast advertising. It does not constitute legal advice. It does not bind CAP, CAP advisory panels or the Advertising Standards Authority.
Some marketers, such as clinics and beauty salons, offer treatments that wrap the customer almost from head to foot. The claimed effects of the body wrap are weight loss and inch loss. The ASA and CAP accept that such wraps can have a temporary effect on weight and size but the mode of action is little more than the expulsion of water from the body (much like a sauna or steam room). Marketers may make claims for temporary weight loss or inch loss but should not claim that weight can be lost from specific areas of the body (Suddenly Slender, April 2000) or that the treatment is for the overweight.
In 2005, the ASA concluded that an ad for a wrap implied guaranteed weight loss and suggested that it produced a sculpting or toning effect on the body. Because the advertiser sent no evidence to show that the Universal Contour Wrap could detoxify or produce weight loss or a sculpting or toning effect, the ASA considered the ad misleading (New Image Studio, 14 December 2005). It made a similar ruling on a portable Sauna Wrap (News Group Newspapers Ltd, 14 December 2005).
Last modified : 13 July 2010