Ulrika Johnson has responded to critics who have labelled the new Channel 4 show Naked Education as indecent.
The 55-year-old broadcaster spoke up to defend the new six-part series co-hosted by Yinka Bokinni, Doctor Alex George from Love Island, and Anna Richardson.
The show, which premiered on Tuesday, tries to untangle kids’ connections with their bodies by showing them naked people and engaging in some quite candid dialogues.
Some viewers were ‘uncomfortable’ with the premise, which promotes body positivity.
‘There’s something about the physicality of a stranger being nude in front of a teenager that I simply feel uncomfortable with,’ Kate Garraway remarked on Good Morning Britain a few days after the initial broadcast.
Ulrika, on the other hand, couldn’t agree more, writing in The Sun about how the ‘prudish’ UK won’t see the ‘urgent’ problem of youngsters obtaining their sex education, and thus twisted sense of what defines a ‘normal’ body, from porn.
‘With our young people relying on soft and even hard porn for their sex education, normalising nudity is becoming increasingly necessary,’ she added.
‘Naturally, this was always going to be too risqué for this prudish country and many felt horrified enough to throw their virtuous and offended arms in the air.’
The mother-of-five went on to commend Naked Education as ‘brave and unapologetic,’ arguing that aversion to nudity outside of the realm of porn simply adds to pressures on women to meet unrealistic body image ideals.
‘It’s a vicious cycle of degradation, compliance and submission,’ she said.
Speaking about the show last week Anna, 52, said: ‘Naked Education is sort of one step further than Naked Attraction, as it says: “Let’s normalise bodies, let’s have the conversation about what we go through and let’s actually educate the nation.”
Replying to the outrage, Channel 4 made a statement, which read: ‘All the teenagers who participated did so with appropriate consent.
‘They and their guardians were fully aware and prepared to take part in the item about body taboos and all had support throughout.’
Naked Education continues on Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4.
Source My Celebrity Life.