Sexist food advertising: Spain issues warning over campaigns

Spain’s Institute for Women warned in Madrid on 22 August 2026 that sexist food advertising remains common in campaigns for restaurants and food brands. The body, which is attached to the Ministry of Equality, said women’s bodies are repeatedly used to draw commercial attention.

Its Observatory for the Image of Women reached the findings in a report reviewing public complaints about food-sector campaigns appearing on street furniture, social media, packaging, posters and commercials between 2025 and 2026. Food advertising accounted for 6.58% of the complaints handled by the observatory during that period.

Complaints focus on sexualisation

Of complaints concerning food advertising, 31% related to the sexualisation of women’s bodies, including imagery that presents women as objects of desire or highlights body parts unrelated to the product being sold.

A further 11% concerned the use of women’s bodies as visual bait without necessarily being sexualised, while 10% involved the repetition of traditional gender stereotypes.

Practices identified across food brands

The report identifies recurring approaches in advertising by burger restaurants, ice-cream brands, pizzerias, fast-food and Asian restaurant chains, bakeries, supermarkets, and water and wine labels. These include sexualised models, imagery centred on mouths or cleavage, and slogans containing sexual innuendo.

It also highlights advertisements that link eating or drinking a product with an implied sexual availability of women. The observatory said repeated exposure to such material, including in everyday public spaces accessible to children, can entrench discriminatory stereotypes and portray women as products of consumption or aesthetic approval.

The institute called on food brands to abandon advertising that demeans or subordinates women. It noted that Spain’s General Advertising Law prohibits adverts that use women’s bodies, or parts of them, as objects detached from the promoted product, or associate their image with stereotyped behaviour.

Topics: Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com