Protein World ad: blatant body shaming or business as usual?

Hundreds of people are planning on taking part in a protest against Protein World's controversial weight-loss posters this week.

Campaigners argue that the ads are sexist and promote an unhealthy body image. A petition calling for them to be removed has received almost 60,000 signatures and the Advertising Standards Authority says it has received hundreds of complaints.

Many of the adverts, which appear across the London Underground, have been defaced with "body positive" slogans.

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"For decades, advertisers have found ways to tell women that their bodies aren't good enough in order to sell their products," Natasha Devon writes in Cosmopolitan. "We've reached saturation point."

However, the company's head of global marketing, Richard Staveley branded those who reacted negatively to the adverts as "irrational extremists".

He said the image on the posters represented what "millions of people, are aspiring to do in time for their summer holiday: to lose a bit of weight, feel a bit healthier and get fitter. It's not a new concept."

The company has also boasted the sales of its weight loss product have tripled and that its advertising had received a bonus as a result.

The controversial Sun columnist Katie Hopkins also waded into the debate. "Chubsters, quit vandalising ProteinWorld ads & get your arse running on the road. Feminism isn't an excuse for being FAT. #EatLessMoveMore," she tweeted.

The company has not only been criticised for their posters, but also for their "abusive" response to the criticism. Comedian and campaigner Juliette Burton, who is open about her experiences with anorexia and depression, said she "wasn't prepared for the torrent of abuse" she received from the company after criticising the ads.

Protein World's chief executive Arjun Seth himself responded to her by tweeting: "It sounds like Juliette had a lot of issues well before she saw the ad" and went on to make light of her mental illness.

"I believe the adverts are dangerous," she writes on the BBC. "But the company's behaviour on Twitter is a scandal."

The contentious posters will be removed today - but not as result of the backlash. Instead, they are being taken down because their allotted advertising period has come to an end.

But the ads aren't unique to one company, say campaigners. "Ultimately, brands such as these will continue their sexist advertising tactics for as long as we let them," says Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in The Guardian. "Let's not let them."