Here is a great website by a team from Girls For A Change. The courageous and brilliant girls of Team MOMENTUM are: Ali, Anna, Danielle, Kendra, Jasmine, Lindsey, and Sheri. They have decided to address the issue girls are facing around body image and self esteem. Girls On Body Image (www.girlsonbodyimage.org) is an amazing effort completely designed and created by girls.
They offer helpful resources on such issues as depression, nutrition, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, and other topics they felt girls would like to know. There is also a way for girls to email for peer support or to ask questions. They bring up important issues such as how girls are influenced by the media and how it impacts their body image. Check out this list below from the site:
How Do You Know if Your Being Influenced By The Media?
Do you watch a show every week, and when that show is over, do you think that maybe you need to start dieting?
Do you pick up the magazine that say “10 ways to lose weight by summer”?
Do you listen to the radio and wish you were “So seductive”? Like rapper 50 Cent says he likes his girls in his song “Candy Shop”.
Do you buy clothes because you think they will make you look thinner?
Does walking by the manikins in store windows make you think about imperfections in your body?
Do you wish you could be on a makeover show?
Do celebrities getting plastic surgery make you want plastic surgery?
Do you avoid shopping with friends because you’re ashamed of your clothing size?
These are just a few things that could clue you into the fact that the media is impacting you in a negative way. How you are affected by the media and how it appears in your life can differ from girl to girl. Hopefully these few questions will get you started on thinking about how you personally might feel influenced by the generalizations and misrepresentations of women in the media.
- Whitney
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