If you spend a lot of hour on Instagram or in the general world, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a major problem with the way we talk about diet, weight loss, and “wellness” in general. This isn’t one simple problem, but rather an entire culture that needs to shift.( If you want more details, try listening to our entire Diet Starts Tomorrow podcast .) But one of the biggest issues on Instagram is the way that influencers promote diet and weight loss products with no regard for what actually works, and what messages could be harmful to their audience. Well, Jameela Jamil co-operates with Instagram to make some important changes.

Jameela Jamil has long been a crusader for most honest practices around wellness products, particularly on social media. She’s repeatedly called out people like the Kardashians for misleading ads and remarks extol unhealthy weight loss tactics. Earlier this year, she launched a change.org petition to Instagram to” Stop celebrities promoting toxic diet products on social media ,” and she got over 200,000 signatures.

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THIS IS HUGE NEWS. @i_weigh are changing the world together. After a bunch of screaming, screaming, and petitioning … we have managed to get the attention of the people at the top, and they have heard us and want to protect us. And this is just the beginning of our efforts. As of now, if you’re under 18, you will no longer be exposed to any diet/ detox products, and for all other ages; all fad products that have bogus, unrealistic asserts will be taken down and easy to report. I’ve been working with Instagram all year towards this, who were amazing to deal with, and they expressed that they passionately care about creating a safer space for us all online. This happened so much faster than I expected and I’m so proud and happy and relieved. WELL DONE to the many people who have been working towards this huge alter. This is a mass effort. This is an extraordinary win that is going to make a big difference. Influencers have to be more responsible. [?]

A post shared by Jameela Jamil (@ jameelajamilofficial) on Sep 18, 2019 at 10:08 am PDT

Instagram insured the same issues as Jameela Jamil, so they’ve now worked with her to institute two new policies dealing with diet products.

-” If a post promotes a weight loss product or cosmetic procedure and has a price tag fixed to it, users who are younger than 18 -years-old will be prohibited from viewing the post .”

-” Any content that makes a’ miraculous assert’ about diet or weight loss products[ is banned ]. So, for example, if an influencer posts a picture of themselves sipping diet tea, promoting their discount code, and telling their followers how they managed to lose 10 lbs rapidly exclusively due to the tea, it will be removed for infringing the new community guidelines .”

Before I get into anything else, let me only country the obvious: both of these are great policies, and it’s an important step toward creating a better culture. I merely have some questions, and I’ll be honest that I’m a little skeptical of how well these rules will actually work.

I’m extremely happy that Instagram is specifically taking measures to shield teens and kids from the harmful messages of weight loss posts. From increasingly young ages, people in our world are taught to feel bad about their bodies, and it needs to stop. Even recently, we’ve seen huge controversy over WW’s decision to launch a weight loss app aimed at kids. The sentiment behind the 18 -and-under policy is great, but it sounds like the only way they’re going about this is through posts that use the shopping feature( hence the “price tag” speech ). I invite you to scroll through the feeds of some influencers and look at their weight loss ads. None of them use the price tag feature. You have to start somewhere, but I have my doubts that this rule is actually going to do anything. Sadly, companies that want to target minors will just get smarter about their specific tactics to skirt the guidelines.

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#ad Ok you guys … I’ve been putting in work, adding in @flattummyco meal replacement shakes and I’m seriously feeling so good. My energy is up, my cravings are controlled and I actually feel like I’m a total potbelly knockout. You need to go check them out while their 30% OFF sale is on. Ps: how CUTE is this shaker bottle ?!

A post shared by Khloe (@ khloekardashian) on May 22, 2019 at 4:09 pm PDT

For example, here’s an ad that Khloe Kardashian( Jameela Jamil’s enemy# 1) recently did for Flat Tummy Tea. It’s obviously an ad, but she doesn’t use the shopping/ price tag feature, though she uses #ad, which adheres with FCC guidelines. Does the 18 -and-under rule even apply to this?

While I’m really unsure about the implementation of the first new policy, the second one has its own set of concerns. According to Jameela’s own terms,” all fad products that have bogus, unrealistic asserts will be taken down and easy to report .” Again, an excellent objective, but the implementation is where it gets tricky. From Instagram’s wording, I assemble that they’ve just updated the community guidelines to stimulate these things technically against the rules, so there are grounds to report these posts. There’s no Instagram bot that’s going to automatically detect these posts and remove them, because that would be basically impossible. How do you quantify a “fad” product? Flat Tummy Tea is an easy one, but what about chunky dad sneakers? I entail, those are a fad, just saying.

Despite all the problematic effects of posts stimulating false asserts about weight loss, censorship is a slippery slope. The nature of weight loss and dieting is that everything runs differently for different people, so there’s a penalty line between specific claims that seems unlikely and something that is categorically false. While I’m not buying that Khloe got a whole new body by sipping diarrhea tea, I can’t say with 100% certainty that it didn’t do anything for her. With this in mind, it’s probably for the best that Instagram’s new policy will rely on self-reporting, so people can judge for themselves what crossings the line.

Overall, I’m excited about the changes that Instagram is constructing, because we shouldn’t have to live in a world of fake weight loss products and Photoshop fails forever. But as with anything, alter takes time, and I’m looking forward to seeing Jameela Jamil continue to work with Instagram to tweak and expand these rules to address the full breadth of the questions. Someday, we might actually be in the good place.

Images: Shutterstock; jameelajamilofficial, khloekardashian/ Instagram