Children, the media, and Body Image - tell us what you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Hello all

Today, as part of the Government's campaign on Body Confidence, Lynne Featherstone (Equalities Minister) is launching a lesson on Body Image for 10-11 year olds.

The lesson has been developed by Media Smart, the ad industry's non-profit media literacy programme, and the overarching aim is to help children think more critically about the images they see in the media. They'll learn about the techniques used in post-production, and discuss how these images make them feel about themselves - you can have a peek at the lesson here.

There will also be parent support materials to accompany the Body Image lesson, and Lynne Featherstone and Media Smart have asked if we could contribute our thoughts.

So, do you think that Body Image is an important issue? Do you ever worry that your DCs might be aspiring to impossibly idealised body types - and if so, do you discuss this with them? Any top tips to help other parents to talk about the issue with their own DCs?

If you'd like more info, the Government's Body Confidence campaign is here, and Media Smart's site is here.

Thanks,

MNHQ

Well it's a load of crap isn't it - just an avoidance of the issue, which is that advertisers are allowed to perpetrate fraud upon the public with their distorted images of men and women. They should make a rule that says the message "this has been manipulated with x, brushed up with y and then re set with z" be printed as at least 25% of the image each time the advertisers used the techniques.

I hate the fact that they're putting the onus on girls and women not to be affected by the fraudulent images, rather than the advertising industry not to produce these images in the first place.

Agree with Uppity.

Why waste precious teaching time on this? You can discuss it with 10 year olds until you are blue in the face, but do you think it will make any difference? The advertising materials are still out there, they are not going to go away.

How about banning adverts for make-up that promote false claims? Banning pseudo-science adverts for hair products, skin creams etc? No? Not going to happen? Didn't think so.

As a government initiative and coming from an advertising industry supported body I think this is deeply iffy, and doesn't really cover enough ground (it's not just body image I worry about but all the messages that the media push onto my children).

However I think that the concept as Lenin has outlined would be an excellent idea, in fact it is something our PTA equivalent (I'm not in the UK) is considering bringing in for our elementary school (so for 11/12 year olds). I talk to my children about this sort of thing all the time, but having someone external coming in and really teaching it very well is I think very valuable. In the same way that last year they had a session on homophobic bullying. Sure I reinforce this message all the time, and ds is pretty clued up generally, but there is real value in talking about this stuff with your peers and challenging their preconceptions as a group.

My very slim dd told me the other day that her thighs were too fat. I explained that what she was poking was in fact muscle, and that without it she wouldn't be able to walk...

The media is to blame pure and simple. I just passed a couple of 14 year olds on the street to over hear "Would you rather be fat or thick?". The damage probably done when they were pre teen.

I think your sense of body image, is very much connected with your family & upbringing. Generally speaking (and of course there are exceptions) but body shapes tend to follow family patterns - partly genetically determined & partly due to familial eating habits. So, whilst I think it is useful to question media images of women & particularly those that are digitally altered, I'm not sure it will greatly change girls images of themselves or improve their ability to make healthy choices about what they eat, which is probably more important. I'm not really sure it is worth spending a whole lot of Govt money on it.