The Royal College of Psychiatrists' (RCPsychs') Eating Disorders Section said the media should be portraying images of more diverse body shapes and helping people feel positive about their bodies.

They also want a kite mark scheme to be introduced whereby a symbol appears on images that have been digitally enhanced to make a model's body appear more perfect.

The RCPsychs are urging the government to address the issue by establishing a new Forum with representatives from the media, advertisers, experts and organizations on eating disorders, regulatory bodies and politicians.

Dr Adrienne Key, a consultant psychiatrist and member of the RCPsych Eating Disorders Section told the press earlier today that the aim of the Forum should be to:

"Collaboratively develop an ethical editorial code that realistically addresses the damaging portrayal of eating disorders, raises awareness of unrealistic visual imagery created through airbrushing and digital enhancement, and also addresses the skewed and erroneous content of magazines."

Labels: media_influences

Labels: media_influences, size 0

• The Boston Globe has reported that a 2007 study by the University of Missouri found that all women, regardless of weight, had a lower satisfaction with their own bodies after viewing fashion magazines for just three minutes.
• In France, legislation has been introduced that would require magazines to carry warning labels stating that they use digitally altered images.
• In the United States, the Dove company has launched its Campaign for Real Beauty which aims to help women and girls redefine "beauty."

Labels: dieting, media_influences

The 26-year-old wears only make-up on the cover of the February issue of Marie Claire, which supports the Butterfly Foundation. The organization provides help to Australians suffering from eating disorders and negative body image issues and their carers.

Foundation general manager Julie Parker, speaking on Radio 3AW today, said the photo, which apparently shows 'flaws' including a slightly dimpled thigh and a tiny crease on her waist, was intended to get the discussion on body image rolling.

"What we're talking about here is just one small part of the much wider spectrum of body image, self esteem and eating disorder issues and that small part is actually about digital enhancement and retouching of images," Ms Parker said.

Labels: body image, magazines, media_influences, models

Not long after the brouhaha over Hamilton's image, Roberts was emailed another RL ad being used in Australia, which also featured a very thin looking woman. When a similar, third image, popped up, Roberts received an onslaught of emails from individuals fuming over the ads--they felt Lauren's apology didn't "mean anything" because he was still running ads similar to Hamilton's. ...

"They were telling me 'we're never buying anything Ralph Lauren,'" Roberts says of the people sending the emails. "It was so overwhelming, that I thought it--the boycott--was the right thing to do on the behalf of all these women that he is disrespecting by carrying on with that kind of advertising."

Roberts included all three images in his newsletter, which also included an open letter to Lauren, and sent it out to the more than 100,000 people on his email list.

Labels: media_influences, self-image_issues

Parliamentarian Valerie Boyer, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, and some 50 other [members of parliament], have proposed a law aimed at fighting touched up images that distort reality.

"Such images can lead people to believe in a reality that often does not exist," Boyer said in an explanatory statement.

The proposed legislation calls for photographs of people "whose body image has been digitally manipulated to be accompanied by a statement saying 'digitally enhanced to modify a person's body image.'"

It also calls for fines of 37,500 euros (55,000 dollars) for non-compliance with the health warning.

Labels: international, legislation, media_influences

Labels: fashion, media_influences

On average, American children and teens spend more than six hours a day with media such as TV, computers, Internet, video games and VCR or DVD players -- more time than they spend per day receiving formal classroom instruction, says Dr. Victor C. Strasburger of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque. (Source: HealthDay News)

Labels: children, media_influences, parents

"Sarah: Everyone says that the media is bad, but I think the thing that hurts the most is family and friends. I had an experience with my uncle. He came to visit us when I was about 13 and I was pretty chubby back then, but it never crossed my mind. I was still a child."

Labels: influences, media_influences, pressures

"The event illuminated some startling statistics while sharing a number of poignant experiences related to body issues. In a survey conducted at UNH in 2001 aimed at finding where UNH stands on body issues, 25 percent of students had symptoms of eating disorders and over half the people surveyed said they knew people with eating disorders."

Labels: beauty, media_influences, myths

"Dietitians Association of Australia spokeswoman Tania Ferraretto said the 'unrealistic' body shapes had a 'huge impact' on women, but more so on children. 'If you speak to adults, everyone will say we know it's not realistic... but it has a subliminal impact,' she said."

Labels: influences, media_influences, role_models

Labels: drugs, media_influences, medications

"Peter Simons... took full responsibility for the offending catalog, which the Montreal Gazette described as featuring 'twig-thin' models who looked like 'strange stick-insect humans.' Simons said he had failed to 'exercise proper attention, empathy and especially sensitivity and social responsibility.'"

Labels: media_influences, modeling, role_models

"So how can parents help their kids get over a poor sense of their physical selves? 'Compliment children's abilities and personal qualities, not just their looks,' [psychologist Laura Mills] says. Beyond calling them cute, note their ingenuity, bravery, co-ordination, curiosity or sunny disposition."

Labels: apperances, influences, media_influences

"Through DSEF, Dove, along with the Girl Scouts of the USA, conduct self-esteem workshops and after school events for girls ages eight through 17. At these programs, girls participate in at least an hour-long educational program that teaches each of them about a positive self-image."

Labels: media_influences, self-esteem, self-image_issues

"The film also follows the career a Gerren, a model who walked runways for Tommy Hilfiger, Marc Jacobs and Richard Tyler when she was 13, but was told she needed to be 'more skinny' by Parisian casting agents and had a meltdown before she was 15."

Labels: awareness, documentary, media_influences

"The campaign tag line, 'Not every suicide note looks like a suicide note' refers to the insight that seemingly innocuous behaviors could be signs someone is suffering from an eating disorder that could kill them...Because of the seriousness of the disorder and the fact that many people do not take it seriously, DDB wanted to introduce an element of shock value into the campaign using real-life stories."

Labels: awareness, media_influences, positive_messages, pro-ana

"He talked to experts, ordinary people, fashion industry workers, magazine editors and style program producers.... 'And the first thing I did was I interviewed 200 women,' Roberts said. 'I asked all of them a set of questions and one of the questions was, "Do you feel attractive?".... and only two said yes.'"

Labels: body_image, media_influences, modeling

"The eating disorder prevention program, called the Body Project, consists of four one-hour weekly sessions in which participants critique the thin ideal espoused for women in our culture and learn how to challenge current and future pressures to be thin."

Labels: media_influences, pressures, prevention

"'What we found most surprising was the unexpectedly high number of women who engage in unhealthy purging activities,' said [Cynthia R.] Bulik, who is also a nutrition professor in the [UNC] School of Public Health. 'More than 31 percent of women in the survey reported that in an attempt to lose weight they had induced vomiting or had taken laxatives, diuretics or diet pills at some point in their life."

Labels: eating_habits, healthy_eating, media_influences

"Many people diet, they say, and almost everyone is bombarded with pressures to be thin, but only a very few - less than half a percent of all women and a scant number of men - develop anorexia. Experts also point to a long history of anorexia over the centuries, before strikingly thin models became cultural superstars and skinny became the ideal of feminine beauty."

Labels: body_type, media_influences, role_models

"The nonbinding charter was signed by groups including the French Couture Federation, the French Federation for Women's Pret-a-Porter and the Union of Modeling Agencies, as well as some representatives of advertising and media."

Labels: fashion, media_influences, prevention

"While not seeking to target bona fide dieting, the law would punish any encouragement to make 'people deprive themselves of food in order to get excessively thin', or than constituted an 'open apology of anorexia.'"

Labels: legislation, media_influences, pro-ana

"But Julie Thomson, general manager of eating disorders and body image campaigners The Butterfly Foundation, said such surveys were far more damaging to women than they were helpful."

Labels: body_image, body_type, media_influences

"Feb. 25, 11a.m. - 1p.m., a free and anonymous eating disorder screening will be held in the Administration Building gallery area. McWatters, a specialist in eating disorder treatment, will be available to meet briefly with interested students following their initial screening."

Labels: awareness, media_influences

"The class seeks to boost girls' self-esteem and help them to make healthier choices. In addition to learning to critically examine media images of women, girls engaged in role-playing, art, discussions and yoga. They discussed healthy food choices and learned to distinguish when they were really hungry from when they were lonely or had some other need."

Labels: education, media_influences, self-esteem

"But what are the sacrifices that young women are making to attain the unobtainable, and what dangers lie in their obsession with body image?... 'Young women do compare themselves to images they see in the media - but only 1 percent of people could actually look like that,' [Queensland University of Technology psychologist Dr. Evonne] Miller says."

Labels: body_image, media_influences, pressures

"The hospital has seen pre-teens and teens who attended school-based obesity prevention program, 'who then decide they're going to be the best kid at not getting fat, who then end up losing so much weight that they put themselves medically at risk,' [Dr. Leora] Pinhas says."

Labels: influences, media_influences, prevention

"The hospital has seen pre-teens and teens who attended school-based obesity prevention program, 'who then decide they're going to be the best kid at not getting fat, who then end up losing so much weight that they put themselves medically at risk,' [Dr. Leora] Pinhas says."

Labels: influences, media_influences, prevention

"It is a tragedy that young women may be starving themselves to match a body shape that exists only on a computer screen. It's too soon to see if editors and art directors will be able to wean themselves away from their airbrushes, but for most the decision may come down to economics."

Labels: advertising, marketing, media_influences

"For too many, every glance in the mirror triggers a default button of self-loathing. And that's what Bertinelli's corporate sponsor counts on each time it recruits another overweight actress to diet for public consumption... The message is always clear, whether it's through a celebrity, usually a female, or just another chunky stranger, also usually a female: She hates herself, and you should, too. But we can help."

Labels: dieting, media_influences, self-esteem

"The government stance comes as data shows an alarming increase in eating disorders, particularly among girls and women in Germany, which some observers have connected with the promotion of the waif-like body ethic in certain sections of the media."

Labels: legislation, media_influences, prevention

"Barkan's goal, through legislation and public relations, is to try to change the very definition of beauty, one pound at a time. In 2004, working with Knesset member Inbal Gavriely, he successfully submitted legislation to Israel's Parliament requiring all Israeli modeling agencies to use the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a pre-requisite for employment..."

Labels: legislation, media_influences, modeling

"...whereas most articles mentioned the exact menu used by eating disorder sufferers when they were ill, fewer than 15 percent gave a similar description of what sufferers ate after they had recovered. Similarly, a sufferer's weight when they were ill was mentioned more often than their healthy weight."

Labels: health_care, media_influences, motivation

"It didn't seem to matter whether the girls were overweight when they started reading about weight loss, nor whether they considered their weight important. After taking those factors into account, researchers still found reading articles about dieting predicted later unhealthy weight loss behavior."

Labels: causes of eating disorders, dieting, media_influences

"Among the nearly 500 students he surveyed, Thomsen found abundant evidence of unhealthy weight control practices in the previous year. Eleven percent of the participants reported that they had used laxatives, 15 percent had taken diet pills, 9 percent induced vomiting, and 52 percent said they had restricted their caloric intake to under 1,200 calories per day."

Labels: dieting, healthy_eating, media_influences

"...experts say the Hill photo has struck a particular chord because the singer is already a beautiful, thin woman - calling into question the beauty industry's idea of 'perfection.' 'Do you know anyone who is female who wouldn't want to look like the real Faith Hill?' asks Michael Levine, professor of psychology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. 'And yet looking like Faith Hill isn't enough for the [beauty] business.'"

Labels: body_image, media_influences, self-esteem

"'We give them the tools they need in order to understand what they're seeing so that in a way they can start to inoculate themselves against any negative images that the media perpetuates,' says About-Face Executive Director Jennifer Berger, 'and there are plenty.'"

Labels: body_image, media_influences, self-esteem

"To date, despite significant efforts, we have not had demonstrable success in raising self-esteem, part of which is physical self-awareness. A more promising approach with demonstrable positive results is the teaching of coping skills - how to deal with the environment we find ourselves in, how to reduce self-blame when we do not match up with images thrust upon us, and how to be judicious in determining what is good and how that can be achieved."

Labels: body_image, media_influences, self-image_issues

"'...I just want young girls to realize that beauty is all about how you feel about yourself, and that includes being healthy. If you feel comfortable and content with yourself then people can see that as well. I wouldn't change anything about myself. I like my size. I'm so happy and so content and I have never had any problems with it. I like to say to myself "Curves are hot... zero is not."'"

Labels: media_influences, role_models, self-esteem

"Pike & Rodin (1991) found that mothers whose daughters were eating disordered were themselves more eating disorders, and thought that their daughters should lose more weight than the mothers of non-eating disordered girls."

Labels: media_influences, parents, self-image_issues

"...two big changes, announced in January, are in the works: Stores run by four big names will start replacing window display mannequins so that none goes below size 38 (10 in Britain, 6 in the U.S.). And the designers will standardize the dimensions of their women's apparel so that a given size will fit the same way no matter who sells it."

Labels: fashion, media_influences, modeling

"Curvy figures have taken the fashion industry by storm. In fashion magazines, red carpet events and runway shows, being full-figured is now welcomed."

Labels: fashion, media_influences, trends

"Since beauty and weight are closely linked in our culture, the desire to be thin is an oppressive message that can foster eating disorders, says Ann Hoschler, director of Student Health & Counseling at Augustana College. She conducts 300 to 400 counseling sessions a year that focus on depression, eating issues, anxiety and family concerns... Reactions to tremendous life changes such as going to college can include anxiety, depression and weight fluctuations—either up or down."

Labels: media_influences, myths, students

"'I thought I was the only one. I thought I was born flawed,' said Shannon Cutts of Houston, Texas, who fought eating disorders for 14 years before recovering and launching a career as a singer-songwriter and motivational speaker."

Labels: body image, media_influences, recovery