Controversial ‘beach body ready’ adverts, which sparked a social media storm and vandalism of posters, have been ruled “not offensive or irresponsible”.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has also said the ads for Protein World weight-loss products would not have shamed women into believing they needed to take a slimming supplement.

The ASA said the term ‘beach body’ carried connotations of a toned, athletic physique similar to the image of the bikini-clad model in the ad but also had a broader meaning of "feeling sufficiently comfortable and confident with one's physical appearance to wear swimwear in a public environment".

The ASA said: "We considered the claim 'Are you beach body ready?' prompted readers to think about whether they were in the shape they wanted to be for the summer and we did not consider that the accompanying image implied that a different body shape to that shown was not good enough or was inferior.

"We concluded that the headline and image were unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence."

It added "we did not consider the image of the model would shame women who had different body shapes into believing they needed to take a slimming supplement to feel confident wearing swimwear in public".

The watchdog received 378 complaints about the posters that had appeared in London Underground stations.

Many of the ads were defaced and a petition calling for their removal gathered tens of thousands of signatures.

The ‘beach body’ ad remains banned in its current form over concerns its health and nutrition claims were not authorised on the EU Register.