Picture the scene.

A dance soundtrack begins, as a series of tanned, toned women in bikinis appear on screen. They waggle their tongues at the camera, growl at the lens provocatively, wipe sand from their bum cheeks and gyrate while wearing only headphones and a black cut-out two piece.

In fact, only a couple of the women aren’t in swimwear. But, fear not, they’re still showing plenty of flesh in crop tops and hot pants. Hang on – did one of them just suggestively lick an ice lolly?

No, this isn’t Robin Thicke's newest music video, though you’d be forgiven for making that mistake.

Welcome to the latest advert by Protein World.

If you think the name sounds familiar, you’d be right.

The self-proclaimed ‘premium online health store’ was responsible for one of the biggest advertising gaffes (or triumphs, depending on your opinion) of 2015.

Its ‘are you beach body ready?’ billboards – which showed a woman in a skimpy bikini, legs akimbo - sparked widespread controversy last summer, with campaigners accusing them of body shaming and being 'sexist'.

An online petition to remove the posters gathered more than 70,000 signatures, while feminists defaced posters on London’s tube network.

The controversial 'beach body ready' ad Credit: Protein World

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) eventually banned the ads from returning to the Underground and launched an investigation into whether they were socially responsible (eventually deciding they weren't offensive). Nonetheless, Campaign magazine recently named it as the worst advertisement of last year.

Now, Protein World is back.

It’s latest slogan ‘New Year, New You’ is perhaps the least offensive thing about the new TV commercial, which I saw last night during the ad breaks between Legally Blonde on Channel 5.

There I was, sitting comfortably on the sofa in my Christmas jumper (a final festive fling before the big return to work), eating chocolate and watching a film that encourages women to unashamedly be themselves when – BHAM – I was smacked in the face by something that, at first glance, looked like soft porn.

It made my heart sink.

Twitter agreed:

Advert for protein world comes on TV as I'm laid eating crisps. Fit girls working out on a beach in bikinis. Great I feel loads better NOT! — LauraPashley (@laurapashers) January 3, 2016

Well the Protein World advert is one way to make you feel depressed about your body 🙈😩 — Lucy Owen (@Juicy18) January 3, 2016

Just saw the new #ProteinWorld ad in the middle of Legally Blonde. Oh. My. God. — Felicity Green (@flicgreen) January 3, 2016

New protein world advert only aimed at women. No wonder so many girls have body hang ups when adverts like this are made. #sexist — Singin'OurHeartsOut (@amyd1987) January 3, 2016

Another critic wrote on Protein World’s Facebook page:

'We haven't forgotten that hideous advert you had on the tube inviting all women to comply to the subjective standards of what you thought was a beach body'.

I thought of the ad again this morning, when I read about a new study by Weight Watchers. They asked 2,000 women about being kind to themselves, and found that the average woman criticises herself eight times a day. One in seven chastises themselves throughout the whole day, every day.

Little wonder, when the message we’re being slapped with is that the new year requires a new you – one who looks like a Victoria’s Secret model and 'crab walk' on the beach, while wearing a flawless white swimsuit.

"We don’t want to be shamed while sitting on our sofas – we want to be inspired by something we can realistically achieve."

Ads like this fly in the face of successful campaigns such as This Girl Can. Sport England’s initiative, launched a year ago this month, aimed to encourage women and girls to take up sport by telling it like it is. Cue sweating, jiggling, huffing and puffing real women doing sport and loving it.

This wasn’t about how they looked but how they felt. The videos were watched 37 million times on social media and have been credited with helping 148,700 women participate in sport so far. And there wasn’t a pert bottom in sight.

This is what women really want: honesty not perfection.

We don’t want to be shamed while sitting on our sofas – we want to be inspired by something we can realistically achieve. And we want ads that speak to us, not to the men we’re supposedly dying to impress with our newly toned abs.

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Why does Protein World still not get it?

Women’s Health does. The magazine recently announced that its New Year’s resolution was to ditch the phrases ‘bikini body’ and ‘drop two dress sizes’.

Editor Amy Keller Laird explained in an open letter: 'Since our goal is always to pump you up, and never to make you feel bad, here’s our pledge: They’re gone. They’ll no longer appear on Women’s Health covers.'

It’s a significant step forward in helping women feel good about their bodies and motivated, rather than scared, to hit the gym, road or sport’s field.

But while ads such as that by Protein World are still flashing before our eyes on TV screens, we stand little chance of squashing body shaming for good and convincing young girls that wearing a bikini isn’t the only reason to be healthy.

And we can't hope to silence that critical inner voice that tells us we're 'too fat' and 'don't do enough exercise' up to eight times a day.