If there’s one thing more painful than watching Netflix’s newly-released teen sitcom Insatiable, it’s seeing just how dismally it’s gone down. Glossing over its current 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, don’t expect Buzzfeed’s “hollow, harmful, and hateful” or Hollywood Reporter’s “trite, way over the top, unfunny and a bloated mess” quotes to frame its promotional posters anytime soon.

However poorly executed, it wouldn’t need to take up our valuable TV-watching brain space if it weren’t sending its audience - mainly teenage girls - a dubious message. As Vox puts it: “it can’t avoid suggesting that [Patty, the protagonist] was right to hate herself, that fat people should hate themselves, and that they should hurt their bodies until they get better — which is to say skinny.”

This representation has sparked concern – so much that 228,000 names signed a petition to stop its release based on the trailer alone. Actor Jane Ponton, currently in Dietland, made the point of the damage the show could inflict: “The mental health and self-image of teenage girls is the most vulnerable demographic to target,” she wrote. “They are so fully bombarded with messaging that everything about their bodies is wrong ­– and this manifests as EDs [eating disorders], disordered eating, dysmorphia, and a whole slew of mental health challenges …”.

13 Reasons Why’s Alisha Boe as Jessica Davis Photograph: Beth Dubber/Netflix

It was only a year ago that Netflix was called out for similar reasons, when it released 13 Reasons Why, a show accused of romanticising teenage suicide. And again in May, when its second season was “a blatant grab for the headlines the teen suicide drama garnered last year,” wrote USA Today. Underlining the sensitivity needed around shows for a younger audience, the Royal College of Psychiatrists noted that the release of the second series was ill-timed as it came out ahead of exams time – when suicide rates typically rise. In the 19 days after 13 Reasons came out, researchers in San Diego found a 19 per cent spike in internet searches around suicide, with ‘suicide prevention’ was also an increased search term, to Netflix’s credit.

Netflix’s justifications for a second season was so that they could “keep the conversations going”, and according to Insatiable’s Alyssa Milano, the show is “not shaming Patty. We are addressing the damage that occurs from fat shaming,” which misses the point that the show demonstrates they’re not mutually exclusive. Over the weekend, Insatiable’s creator Lauren Gussis said that the negative response and reviews were tantamount to censorship. “I think we’re in a real danger of censorship if we decide that we all have to tell stories in a certain way so that everybody else feels safe,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.

Sharon Rooney in My Mad Fat Diary Photograph: Channel 4/PA

There is merit to stepping away from anodyne topics told in bland ways, and in bringing hidden conversations into the fore. But if Netflix wanted to shine a light on the mental anguish of those with weight issues in a meaningful way, they could have taken a leaf from Channel 4’s My Mad Fat Diary. The teen sitcom tackled Rae’s complicated relationship with food with sensitivity, authenticity and cracking jokes ­– which weren’t disproportionately at Rae’s expense. Even a close eye on Netflix’s own programming would have helped, like Atypical is a better example of how to depict teens at the fringes of mainstream society. If that’s their target subject matter, it’s critical it’s done well in order for its audience to walk away with positive messages, rather than the motto of “skinny is magic” that it repeats. Cue the laughs, I suppose.

We know that Netflix has ambitious subscriber targets and that its not a societal warden – last year company CEO said that Netflix’s biggest competitor wasn’t Amazon, HBO or Hulu, it was our sleep. Now that most western markets are open to the streaming service, its focus is to lure more subscribers. One way of doing that is by making talked-about TV, which turns the head of potential subscribers whenever Netflix are at the front and centre of discourse – whether that’s positive or negative.

In that regard, Insatiable has already done its job.

At its best Netflix offers something truly unique. It recently earned 112 Emmy nominations and rightly so: it mostly makes incredible use of its non-traditional status by taking calculated risks and uncovering the stories of forgotten voices. But with these clumsy strides into controversy, it feels like it knows insensitive television isn’t a catastrophe and it won’t be afraid of making more.