Why Sydney Sweeney’s controversial advert goes beyond sexualising women’s sport

Novig sports advertising, The Conversation Sydney Sweeney’s sports advertisement has been widely criticised by women athletes as sexualising athletes’ bodies.

The advertisement , for sports prediction company Novig, features the US actor wearing little or no clothing while posing with sports equipment and pretending to play a range of sports.

Australian Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus is among the athletes who have criticised the campaign , questioning why sexualising women is still being used to sell sport: … how do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing? To take the mickey like this.

I thought we were genuinely moving past this bullsh-t.

What is this teaching the young men and women of today? Other athletes have responded by posting images of themselves training and competing, highlighting the strength, skill and hard work involved in being an athlete.

But the controversy is about more than one advertisement.

It raises a bigger issue about the attention we give to what women look like, rather than who they are and what they can do.

As a clinical psychologist specialising in body image and eating disorders, this is particularly important to me.

Body image isn’t simply about whether we like or dislike our appearance.

It includes our thoughts, feelings and attitudes toward our bodies, and how much importance we place on appearance when valuing ourselves.

Sport provides a wonderful opportunity to shift that focus.

Rather than asking “how does my body look?”, we can appreciate “what can my body do?”.

Strong, powerful, yet look a certain way In sport, female athletes’ bodies need to perform.

This might require strength, muscularity, speed, endurance or power.