An analysis published in the British Medical Journal finds messages around empowerment and women’s rights are being used inappropriately to market products in women’s health.
Corporations co-opt feminist messages around women’s wellbeing to promote useless health tests and treatments, an analysis by Australian researchers has found.
Their study describes how these marketing messages echo those used to promote harmful products like tobacco and alcohol to women in the 1980s.
They argue that women are being potentially exposed to harms such as over diagnosis and unnecessary treatment through messages encouraging them to take charge of their health.
The analysis uses the example of some menstrual tracking apps that claim to diagnose reproductive conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome. The researchers also highlight the marketing of the AMH test, which measures levels of anti-Müllerian hormone in the blood.
The hormone is linked to the number of eggs in a woman’s ovaries, but the test cannot reliably predict a woman’s chances of conceiving. Despite this, many fertility clinics and online companies market and sell the test as a fertility tool, using phrases such as “information is power” and “take charge of your fertility”.
A senior author of the paper, Dr Brooke Nickel, said the responsibility should not be placed on individual women to navigate these health messages. “The responsibility should largely be placed on companies that market these health interventions to be clearer about their limitations,” she said.