Media's effect on Teenager Behaviour

The Effects of Media Violence on our Youth

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:29:00 +0000

Children are exposed to violence and aggression on a day to day basis. Even though some do not come from violent families or poor environments these children are exposed to it every time they turn on the television. Whether it is a TV show, a video game or the realistic version, the evening news, murder and crime are something we have come to tolerate. "A typical child in the U.S. watches 28 hours of TV weekly, seeing as many as 8,000 murders by the time he or she finishes elementary school at age 11, and worse, the killers are depicted as getting away with the murders 75% of the time while showing no remorse or accountability." (Thompson, 2007)

Today's psychologist and scientist are researching the effects that media violence has on children and what they are finding is shocking. One effect media violence has on children is emotional in nature. Some children become confused by the reality (or lack or reality) in violent scenarios and become more fearful of the world around them. These types of changes usually occur over a long period of time and can lead to severe emotional distress. Researchers at Iowa State University are finding that these types of emotional changes are linked with Separation Anxiety Disorder. Although Separation Anxiety Disorder is not primarily caused by media violence, psychologists are finding that this kind of exposure can cause anxiety to worsen. (Iowa State University, 2008)

In addition to changes in emotional distress psychologist are finding that children tend to act out violent scenes and begin to perceive it as acceptable behavior. Research conducted by psychologist L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron and others concluded that elementary age children who watch several hours of TV a day show higher levels of aggressiveness in their teenage years. During this study Drs. Huesmann and Eron observed the same group of children into their adult years and found an interesting pattern. The children who were exposed to several hours of TV violence at the age of eight where more likely to be arrested and convicted of
criminal act as adults. Dr, Huesmann suggest that "that being aggressive as a child did not predict watching more violent TV as a teenager; this may mean that violent media may more often be a cause than a consequence of aggressive behavior."(2007)

This study along with many others gives evidence that children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Watching criminal characters kill with no remorse and get away with murder gives children a poor perception of the legal system and respect for laws. Children often imitate what they see. It is how they learn and it is quite possible that they are learning to be aggressive not from their parents but what they watch on TV. Dr. Barbara Wilson, senior researcher for The National Television Violence Study, states that, "Younger children have difficulty distinguishing televised fantasy from reality, and are therefore at increased risk of imitating cartoon violence."

Blurring the lines of reality even more is the effects of other violent media such as video games. Since their creation in the '70 many researchers have wondered about the effects of gaming on human behavior but it was not until more recently that they have become a large focus of study. With new technology and graphic design, video game creators have the ability to make violent games surprisingly realistic. Many of these games are war related and teach war strategy and involve a variety of weapons. The extreme graphics depict the horrifying and gruesome deaths that the player's victim experiences. Other than that these games are created in the first-person perspective, giving the player the ability to see through the eyes of the character in the game. "Look at the psychological damage of many war veterans and think that is what we are exposing out children to", says Dr. Barbra Wilson.

Although there is some evidence that children are negatively affected by video games there have been many studies that show conflicting results. Many of these studies show increased aggressive behavior in some children after playing violent games and in others there were not negative effects. It is clear that there is still much more research to be done to conclude that video games are directly related to aggressive behavior. That being said there is already enough evidence to link the two subjects. Most of the new evidence and interest in this subject is due to the great number of school shooting that have occurred in the past ten years. The effects of this type of violent media have been found to be related to Antisocial Personality Disorder. People who are dealing with this type of disorder are usually characterized as impulsive and insensitive to others suffering. One theory regarding this disorder is that the aggressive tendencies are learned socially. This would imply that any violent behavior learned through gaming could produce long term behavior issues. (Huesmann, 2007)

TV Guide estimates that ninety-eight percent of people with televisions watch them an average of six hours a day. The poll they conducted concluded that one in four Americans would still keep their TVs even if they were offered one million dollars. (1992) Therefore we can say that the bulk of America is addicted to their televisions. But TV is not always bad. There are many educational and beneficial programs. Shows like Sesame Street are both educational and entertaining to children. It can teach lessons such as tolerance, cooperation, manners and promote good behavior. There are also other benefits like giving a child a better understanding of different cultures and as well as her own. This kind of good TV exposure could introduce new ideas and have many long lasting positive effects.

The U.S government has yet to curb children's exposure to media violence. There have been several attempts but none have been successful. This is mainly due to apparent gaps in what scientific findings have discovered and what the U.S courts and society understand. One issue that prevents the government from limiting media violence is the First Amendment. They are conservative about regulating freedom of speech because it is the core of democracy. The court system is unlikely to rule differently until enough time has passed for new research to be conducted and new evidence found. (Iowa State University, 2008) There are also reasons that the public has not called for more preventive measures.

"One reason is what's called 'the third-person effect' – "that it's a lot easier to notice these types of effects on other people rather than in ourselves and those closest to us. So most parents don't think media violence affects their kids," Begley said. "That's partly because media violence effects accumulate slowly and people aren't good at detecting small changes -- even though those changes could be big by the end. (Begley, 1999)

"Another reason is that the news media primarily focus on violent media effects in terms of killing like Columbine. "This confusion about equating media violence with extreme atrocities allows people to think that there are no effects on them because we all know that we've watched lots of media violence and never gone on a shooting rampage, but that's not where we should look for the effects. The effects are more subtle. In order to do something seriously violent, one must have multiple risk factors for aggression – media violence is only one risk factor, and it's not the largest one. It's also not the smallest." (Raine, 2002)

The ISU researchers recommend that helpful policy plans could be introduced at the school, district, state, or federal levels to apply a set of "media literacy standards" for children. These standards demonstrate how public policy, regarding children's media could be successfully obtained below the federal level, and by non-governmental articles. For example, they suggest that the national or state chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics make policies that require pediatricians to be trained about the research about positive and negative media effects, and to provide parents with that information during regular doctor visits. "Perhaps the single most effective policy that could be created to help parents manage children's media would be to mandate the creation of one universal rating system that could be used for all media, including TV, movies, video games, and recorded music," they wrote. In conclusion, we know that children are exposed to media violence today more than ever and researchers as well as psychologist are working hard to uncover the effects. However, there is evidence that these effects could be emotional as well as psychical and mental. The major effect that have been identified are; children becoming less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, they may be more fearful of the world around them and they are more likely to behave in violent or aggressive ways towards
others. The cause of aggressive behavior has been linked to such disorders as Separation Anxiety Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. With all of the evidence found so far there is much still to be learned about media violence and the negative effects it has on our youth. With the growing rate of teen violence and school shootings there has recently been more interest in this subject in hopes to help understand, prevent and treat our troubled youth.

References

Begley, S. (1999, May). Why the young kill. Newsweek, 133(18), 32-35. Retrieved September 26, 2008, from Research Library database.

Raine, A. (2002). Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: A review. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 30(4), 311-326. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from Research Library database.

Saleem, M. (2006) Public Policy and the Effects of Media on Children. Journal of Social Issues and Policy Review, 23(12), 5-7. Retrieved October 09, 2008, from Research Library database.

Thompson, R. (2007). Mothers' Violence Victimization and Child Behavior Problems: Examining the Link. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry , 77(2), 306. Retrieved September 26, 2008 , from Research Library database.

Iowa State University; Iowa State psychologists explore public policy and effects of media violence on children. (2008, January). NewsRx Science,4. Retrieved October 6, 2008, from Research Library database

http://www.informativepost.com/2008/11/08/The-Effects-of-Media-Violence-on-our-Youth-2313.htm

Teen Exposure to Sex in Media Leads to Intercourse, Study Says

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:55:00 +0000

Adolescents who get a heavy diet of music, television, magazines and movies are more likely to have sex at the ages of 14 to 16 years than those who have minimal exposure, said a study published in the journal Pediatrics.

White 12- to 14-year-olds exposed to sex through the media were 2.2 times more likely to participate in early sexual activity than their peers who reported the lowest exposure to media, said the study in the April issue. Black teens, however, were more influenced by their parents' expectations and their friends' sexual behavior.

The study, in analyzing 170 songs, discovered 40 percent of the lyrics contained sexual content. Among the artists the adolescents listened to were Nelly, Ja Rule, Jay Z and Destiny's Child, said Jane Brown, chief researcher and a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

``In our analysis, movies and music were the most powerful influences,'' Brown said. ``The media they're using doesn't always show up on the Top 10 lists. Most of the kids are listening to rap.''

The other media, magazines and television, had about 11 percent sexual content, she said, adding ``The Simpsons'' was the most popular television show.

``The main thing we've done is look beyond television. It's not only television; other media affect sexual behavior,'' Brown said.

The researchers interviewed 1,017 black and white adolescents from 14 middle schools in central North Carolina. Each teen was evaluated at age 12 to 14 years, and once again two years later.

Five to Six Hours

Surveys cited by the study said white adolescents in the U.S. spent an average of five to six hours a day with some form of media that showed frequent, glamorized and consequence-free sexual activity and black youth spent even more time.

``Media is a powerful sex educator, but not always in the best interest of children,'' Brown said. ```Desperate Housewives' could use condoms. Why not? On reality programs, let's get real. People do use condoms. What's missing in the media are the three Cs. Rarely is there a commitment, contraceptives or consequences.''

While the media used by black youths had more sexual content than media used by whites, the influence was less, which was a surprising aspect of the study, Brown said. Researchers said if they had started the study of black adolescents, who were more mature than their white peers in the sample, at an earlier age, they may have found more impact from the media.

`Significant Predictor'

``Parents were a significant predictor,'' Brown said. ``If the teen knows what you think, your teen is less likely to have sex. Parents are more powerful for blacks. It may be because there is more talk about sexuality in the black culture. We all need to take more and healthier sexual information to teens.''

The authors said media literacy education for parents, and youth partnerships with youth-oriented media and physician education and intervention, provide opportunities to help reduce media's negative effects. The study is titled ``Sexy Media Matters: Exposure to Sexual Content in Music, Movies, Television, and Magazines, Predicts Black and White Adolescent Sexual Behavior.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Nancy Kercheval in Washington at nkercheval@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 3, 2006 00:04 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=af27.EZ3b2vs&refer=canada

Rachel and Ross made me have sex

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:40:00 +0000

The Daily Mail has pounced on a survey from an American research body which says teenagers who watch programmes with a high sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant.

The programmes specifically cited in the study of 2,000 American youngsters are Sex and the City and Friends; perhaps also proving that a story is much more likely to catch the eye if it carries a picture of a hit TV programme and the star is a sexily dressed actress. Sarah Jessica Parker in her candy-striped outfit anyone?

The shows they refer to are very different beasts for a kick off. Sex and the City does portray sex, sometimes very graphically, and features frequent and frank discussion of the subject. But the show was always on after the watershed and the DVDs are classified for the over-15s. At the
age of 16, British teenagers are legally allowed to have sex, so they need to have broached the subject before then.

And for all the graphic descriptions, Sex and the City's plotlines don't suggest that all casual sex is consequence-free. Miranda's one-night stand with Steve leads to her unexpected pregnancy. By the same token, Ross and Rachel's "bonus night" in the much tamer Friends leads to Rachel's
unplanned baby. Two shows reflecting the fact that "people have sex" can hardly be held responsible for the sexualisation of teenagers.

But that's beside the point. The fact is, children who watch whatever TV they want, unsupervised, are also less likely to receive guidance from their parents in other areas of their life -ie sex education. If you're not going to take an interest in what your children are watching, will you bother to sit them down and tell them -before they become sexually active- about the choices they face as they reach the age of sexual maturity?

As usual, this news story is designed to terrify parents and provoke mass television burnings just in time for bonfire night. It's TV's fault. It couldn't possibly be the British embarrassment about sex that has landed us at the top of Europe's teen pregnancy chart. It couldn't be a lack of coherent sex education in schools or some parents failing to take responsibility for their children's emotional wellbeing. Or a combination of both.

The study is American, but a Tory MP is already calling for the research to be done here. The US survey of 12-17 year olds took no notice of social or economic factors. It didn't take into account the kind of sex education (if any) the teenagers were getting from their parents. It just drew the glib conclusion that regular exposure to sexualised television content (and they even include cartoons here) doubles a teenager's chances of pregnancy.

The influences on teenagers are many. Surely it is far more important to arm them with information about sexual activity than it is to cry scandal when they catch a glimpse of some heavy petting on a comedy show. Far from "the media" forcing them to grow up too early, it sounds like we could all do with being a bit more grown up when it comes to educating our own children.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2008/nov/04/sex-education-television-friends

Teenagers debate about influence of sex in media

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:19:00 +0000

By Kara Thomas - Telegraph Teen Board

All day, everyday, teenagers are bombarded with sex.

It’s on television, in the movies, on magazine covers, on the Internet and in advertisements.

Currently, the average age boys and girls lose their virginity is 17, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group focused on sexual and reproductive health research, policy analysis and public education.

One out of every four teens gets a sexually transmitted disease each year and on average four out of every 10 girls will get pregnant at least once before they’re 20, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

But whether those statistics are connected to sex in the media is debatable among Middle Georgia teens.

Benny Walsh, a Mount de Sales Academy senior, said the media makes teens feel like they have to be sexually active.

Jill Stephenson, a Westside High School senior, agreed with Walsh to an extent.

“’Sex sells’ is what they go by in the commercials, movies, shows, in gossip magazines, and it influences young boys and girls,” she said.

But whether teens give in to the pressures depends on who they surround themselves with, she said.

“Personally, I don’t feel pressured. I know who I am and I’m not going to let people pressure me into anything,” said Elia Lintz, a Mount de Sales senior.

Some teens don’t even realize the effect sex in the media has on them or even that it is there.

“I’ve seen it so much, I’m numb to it,” said Andrew Suarez, a Mount de Sales senior.

Some celebrities, though, are now using the media to try to diminish the importance of sex.

Misha Barton and Jennifer Love Hewitt have recently spoken out about Hollywood’s obsession with weight.

“A size two is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size zero doesn’t make you beautiful,” Hewitt wrote on her Web site after tabloids began criticizing pictures of her in a bathing suit.

The Jonas Brothers, who all proudly wear promise rings, along with some of Disney’s new teen celebrities are offering a new kind of role model for teenagers today.

Now on MTV is a new show, “Sex with Mom and Dad,” in which a psychiatrist sits down and openly talks about sex with parents and their teenagers, promoting safety, honesty and good decision-making.

Some teens are noticing these changes.

Gerald Flanders, a senior at Tattnall Square Academy, said teens are starting to reject the Hollywood idea of the perfect body.

“That’s the whole ideal guy and ideal girl thing that everybody has gotten over,” he said.

Kara Thomas is a senior at Mount de Sales Academy.

Source:
http://www.macon.com/146/story/513819.html

I'm thin therefore I am

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:28:00 +0000

Hunger hardly comes into it. When I'm bored or stalled, I poke around in the fridge, eat a slice of cheese maybe, or a tomato, or a carrot - peeled and nibbled from the outside inwards, so I end up with the fragile central core. When I'm tired, I eat roasted peppers, rice pudding, shortbread biscuits dunked in tea. When I'm a bit low, I eat chocolate, letting it dissolve in my mouth. When I feel anxious about my children, I make cakes or biscuits, even in the middle of the night after they're asleep, and the smell of baking reassures me: ginger oat biscuits, lemon cake, brownies. When I have guests, I wake in the early hours and plan meals (cassoulet, monkfish with lime, pear and almond tart, strawberries, passion fruit, great gooey wheels of Brie), and it's like thinking about Christmas presents. When work is going well, I will often cook slow, satisfying meals: soups, crusty pies, things that rise in the oven if I'm lucky - there's something very consoling about a pot simmering on the stove, a washing machine thrumming in the background, life running according to plan. I don't like breakfasts, because food for me is like some kind of a reward: eating straight after sleeping treats food as fuel. I love eating late: food as a tryst, a pleasure at the end of the day, like smoking in the dark used to be. Snacks in bed are bliss: buttery scrambled eggs and crumbs in the sheets. When I'm excited, I rarely feel hungry, for then I want to be light-footed and empty - a piece of steamed fish, maybe, or a green salad; something clean and astringent that won't weigh me down; sushi is perfect. When I'm guilty or agitated, I push things round my plate; heap the rice. When I am sad, I starve myself.

For most women in the West, food is intensely symbolic; our relationship to it complicated in both rich and disturbing ways. A man often puts a piece of food on his fork, puts it in his mouth, swallows it, often too quickly to properly taste it, stops eating when he no longer feels hungry. It's not quite like that for a woman - a woman is intensely in and of her body, used to being looked at, looking at herself. Few women eat simply because they need to. We are emotional, often neurotic, about food - cooking it, eating it - in a way that most men are not. We take the world and put it into our mouths. In the Sixties, there was this mad idea that we could absorb all our daily needs in little pills, the kind of things that astronauts took with them. We could just pop a couple of tablets into our mouths, and that would be it. You'd have to come from the moon to think that our desires could be satisfied so easily.

All those different tastes and textures and experiences that we chew and swallow, absorb into our bodies. Several times a day, we feel the desire to eat and then we satisfy that desire. Days are structured round meals and we rarely tire of the pleasure of eating and all of its meanings. Food as an offering and a welcome; food as social intimacy; food as ritual and gesture; food as an act of nurture; food as memory (for how often memories centre on meals: the romantic one where we raised our glasses in the candlelight and made promises, the family one where we re-told for the hundredth time the stories that remind us of who we are, the solitary one with a book, overhearing someone else's conversation; the supper of fried pike that my son had fished from the lake. Food as appetite, sex, intimacy.

And then, of course, all the opposites of this too - food as guilt, as sin, as a perverse corruption and impurity. We can be scared of food - not just of mad cow or toxic greens, but of ordinary food, as if the very concept of food has been tainted; as if we have allowed ourselves to be alienated from the act of eating, and hopelessly self-conscious. On this fork is something that will taste delicious, but it might bring you out in spots, put weight on your hips, fur your arteries, endanger your guts. Food as pleasure, food as impurity and poison.

There's a magazine in front of me and I turn the pages, looking at photographs of women so thin and elongated that they look as if they have been taken through a distorting lens, transforming them into another species. Arms that knot onto the shoulders; sinews showing, hip bones jutting, hollows in the buttocks, ribs climbing like a ladder up the body, a sculpted face. A lot of them have the same gaunt and high-cheekboned look, as if they've been stitched up - and of course, they have been stitched up, augmented, nipped and tucked and rearranged into the ideal of unattainable female beauty. There are women who look as if they've come out of a concentration camp, or who look pasted together from two different patterns, with the generous breasts of a suckling mother and the narrow hips of a pre-pubescent girl. At the Oscars, the photographs of the female stars displayed the same cult of thinness: gorgeous, flattened-out women; rib-cages, slender wrists, all displaying their flesh in their low-cut dresses, and all triumphantly unfleshy. These are our models of beauty. Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal), growing tinier with each series, eyes huge in her tiny, hopeful face - a woman who looks like a child, vulnerable and frail in a man's world. Jennifer Aniston (Rachel in Friends), and her co-star Courteney Cox (Monica), who started the series seven years ago looking like one of us, which was the point, but who have grown thinner and thinner as their success has grown. Victoria Beckham, a disappearing act. Women rarely eat in films, or not if they are the heroine.

Geri Halliwell, who used to look brightly healthy and bouncily curved and was a figure of some fun to the media - but as she got thinner, she has been treated seriously. She had re-invented, literally refined, herself, simply by losing weight. Kate Winslet is an actress who refuses to be thin. She is beautiful - and she's talented. She grew up being teased for her plumpness, starved and binged and wept her way through adolescence. In Titanic, she was wonderful and lustrously beautiful, and yet some critics called her 'too fleshy'. When she had a baby and commented, casually, in an interview that she needed to lose a few pounds, a mild furore broke out. Paper after paper wrote pieces about her 'problem'; they wrote about anorexia, obesity, the actress's battle with food, the difficulty of getting back to the 'proper' shape after pregnancy. It seemed to be about a matter of control - a woman's need to curb her appetites, not to give in to hunger or greed. Overweight women are mocked; they are meant to be cheery figures, down-to-earth, fun, the best friend to the heroine, the bridesmaid at the wedding, the bun-eating confidante. To be fat is to be unsubtle, a bit ridiculous, something of a floozy and a joke. To be thin is to have conferred upon you an air of suffering. To be thin is to be tragic, beautiful, pure; in Hollywood, size zero is the fashion goal - as if we want to disappear; the ultimate visibility is to not exist at all.

We may look at a model in a woman's magazine, all angles and planes, with no breasts, a kind of anti-female, anti-maternal image of femininity, not nurturing but androgynous, and say: 'Ugh, how terrible.' We agree that it's awful, she's so thin she looks like a street-waif, a pre-pubertal child. We think it's repellent. At the same time, we want to be like that. We are scornful of the fact that we want to be like that, because we know it's neurotic and it is deeply boring and we should be more grown up by now, and who on earth wants to be like Bridget Jones, riveted by calorific intake and forever failing and feeling guilt, or in thrall of a self-obsessed self-denial? Who wants to starve? Half of the people in poorer countries are starving anyway, think of that, and how grotesque it is that we in the rich countries imitate their wracked frames. The world should mean a great deal more than how much space we take up in it. Why is it that we want to take up so little space?

Last year nutrition experts at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health looked at the heights and weights of the winners of Miss America over the 78 years of the competition's history. They discovered that not only are the winners dramatically thinner now than they were eight decades ago (the graph accompanying the survey starts its ascent gradually, but then becomes like a cliff), but that the winners were actually dangerously malnourished. They should be in hospital. Beauty as illness. Thousands of women die each year of anorexia (self-obliteration is anorexia's end-game). At any one time, about 80 per cent of women are on a diet. According to Susie Orbach (author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and Hunger Strike), 70 per cent of nine-year-olds in San Francisco are on a diet because although they are of normal weight, they perceive themselves to be fat; 50 per cent of girls in California aged six are already so self-conscious about their bodies that they feel uneasy about going onto the beach in their swimming costumes. A survey done last year in the UK by the Schools Education Unit of 18,221 young people, revealed that 62.5 per cent of girls between 14 and 15 and 53.8 per cent of those between 12 and 13 said they wanted to lose weight - though most of these young girls were not overweight at all, and many were actually underweight. A fifth of girls skip breakfast; about 15 per cent skip lunch. The age at which girls become anxious about body shape is slipping lower each year. More and more women are becoming bulimic - succumbing to the desire for food, and then repudiating it; taking food into their bodies, but then vomiting it out. Women can weigh as little as four stone (as much as my ten-year-old, who's very small for her age). They grow hair all over their bodies. They are cold all the time. They are dying.

A friend said to me recently that she has noticed how almost all the women she knew had become suddenly interested in diets again, after several years, during which they'd had children, where dieting was not so much of an issue. These are women in their late thirties and forties, and, like me, showing the sudden signs of ageing that take most of us by surprise. The body changes shape; the wrinkles appear round the eyes, tiny stitches above the lip, a melancholy droop to the face when tired. We've arrived at that uncertain age when we're not old but we're no longer young, no longer such obvious objects of desire in the world. We've started to become invisible, so we try to diet ourselves back into visibility and desirability, in the same way that some women go under the knife to have their wrinkles and sags surgically removed.

We hear about strange diets (sometimes, books are produced featuring them): the no-carbohydrates-whatsoever diet (this is very bad for you); the egg-white omelettes (this sounds completely disgusting). We hear, too, of more and more things that are forbidden: dairy products, wheat. Suddenly food is full of risks and mysterious consequences; few things are safe. In his captivating, funny celebration of omnivorous eating, The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten is stinging about the increase of fads and phobias that range from revulsion to indifference. 'The more I contemplated food phobias,' he writes, 'the more I became convinced that people who habitually avoid certifiably delicious foods are at least as troubled as people who avoid sex, or take no pleasure from it, except that the latter will probably seek psychiatric help, while food phobics rationalise their behaviour in the name of genetic inheritance, allergy, vegetarianism, matters of taste, nutrition, food safety, obesity or a sensitive nature.'

At the same time as being more worried than ever about what we put into our bodies, and how thin we are, we are more than ever interested in food, and surrounded by it. Cookery books fill bookshops and sell in their millions - books that are often filled with recipes we're never going to attempt, but we will look at with longing, a new kind of pornography. Thus do diet books sell, their antidote - after desire comes repression. There are guides to fasting - purging the body of corrupting food. (I once tried a fast; I lasted about four hours, which is less time than a normal space between meals, and at the end of it I was consumed with longing for food; I gave in with a handful of salted cashew nuts and a large gulp of spicy tomato juice, then proceeded to wolf down a large meal - and oh, it tasted wonderful. Abstinence makes the appetite stronger.)

Celebrity chefs fill our TV screens - no longer just competent Delia Smith, with her firm hands and calm explanations of simple procedures, but the laddish, slapdash, finger-licking Jamie Oliver, adored over the land by young women and their mothers, and the dark-haired Nigella Lawson, a goddess of the stainless steel hob. They are offering us not just food as food but food as some mysterious kind of joy, as well. As a way of life that we thought was beyond us. The drizzle of olive oil and the smell of vanilla or yeast. We too can be lovely and beloved, successful and yet domestic, a mother and yet sexy and yet divine. Artists in our own life.

Food is symbolic. When a woman cooks a meal for her family, it can be as if she is offering a bit of herself - as if food actually comes from her body, like a sacrament(this, of course, makes it difficult to reject, and so food gets all tied up with guilt, as well). Food is ritual. It is where families bond, friendships go, lovers often meet. Food is moral. If you succumb to it, then you're letting yourself go, giving in, and that won't do. It is a gift, a tyranny, like sex. Food can be a weapon. Women, more than men, turn anger or fear inwards against themselves. Male mid-life crises are often dramatised by a tempestuous affair and a sense of going off the orderly rails, whereas women more often become silently depressed, so starving or bingeing are largely female actions. We turn upon ourselves.

Women have babies and usually they suckle them, holding them against their breast and feeding them out of their own bodies. Usually - even now - women are the food-providers in general. They often learn from their own mothers, from a very early age, that that's what women do: prepare meals. Many of my memories of growing up are kitchen memories. The wooden spoon, the mixing bowl, the cheese grater, the garlic press, the steamer. Fairy cakes and licking the bowl afterwards. White sauce with nutmeg and black pepper. Sniffing at the top of a melon to test its ripeness. Chopping herbs on a wooden board: rosemary, basil, thyme. Garlic bread (I buy it ready-prepared now). Sliding the skin off a cooked beetroot. Peeling chestnuts for the turkey stuffing; bits stuck under the nail. Femininity is connected to food.

Recipes are like recipes for happiness, too. I pass on the things I learnt from my mother to my children (I try and cook with my son as well as my daughters - last night a stir-fry into which we all chopped and tossed ingredients: prawns, chillies, cabbage, noodles), and it is as if I am also passing on my childhood, or re-creating it somehow. I am being a mother who is the placid guardian of her children's contentment and health. Male cooks are often like artists: temperamental, creative, flamboyant, surrounded by mess and havoc. For women, who've usually grown up knowing how to do it, cooking is like a second nature; an activity done alongside all the other tasks, and a basic urge to nurture. Which is maybe why I think I am at my most peaceful when I am on holiday in Sweden, where we go every year, to the pine forests and lakes - hunting for mushrooms in the dark woods. We spread out in a ragged line and look for apricot-coloured, trumpet-shaped chantarelles, or stout, meaty ceps, or black, curled horn of plenty. The children disappear into the trees, but I can hear their voices still. Sometimes we come away with nothing; sometimes a basketful of mushroom, with their moist, mulchy odour. I wash the dirt carefully off their stems, slice away any maggoty flesh, and cook them in garlic and cream. A feeling of real contentment floods me, a sense of fulfilment. This is my primitive job. When children leave home, one of the things that their mother often comments on is the poignancy of going shopping and putting less into the trolley. Happiness is a full fridge.

Sometimes I feel so oppressed by preparing meals - frantic breakfasts (late, late, late), packed lunches, supper for six or 10 or whoever comes through the door - that I want to run wailing from the house. Every day, all those mouths. Thank God for pasta and those lovely little pots of sauce and pesto to pour over the top. Thank God for the baked potato. For sliced bread, spreading butter. Freezers and microwaves. Tins - especially those tins with a ring-pull, so you don't even need an opener. Ice-cream that's ready to scoop. I stand at the stove hot from head to toe, blotchy and cross and the sink's full of pans and there are gluey patches on the floor. Things can go wrong; the pasta sticks in a lump. The smell of frying fills my nostrils. Something burns. Something sticks. I want a bath. A restaurant. A takeaway. A wife.

But when I think of perfect experiences, they usually involve cooking somewhere along the line: A lot of friendships are developed in the kitchen - the act of chopping vegetables together, stirring the pot, talking , sometimes about important things because also concentrating on the mundane sacrament of preparing a meal. It's such a hoary old cliché - the men off playing snooker or drinking beer; the women cooking - but at the same time such a consolation and delight.

It's what women usually do together. They discuss food together, diet together, cook together - they bloody clear up together, too. It's what a mother passes on to her children. How to make an omelette, still runny in the middle; how to chop an onion so that your eyes don't water; the glory of poached egg on a hot-buttered crumpet with Marmite; the comfort and erotic bliss of food.

First person: one woman's battle with anorexia and bulimia

When I was four I found my older cousin and idol purging her lunch in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant. It was not only the first time I had witnessed bulimia, but the first time I had ever witnessed vomiting. I remember, filing it in my brain under 'future reference'. My life centred around my mother, who was an ethical, caring, and loving woman, without a clue of responsibility for her own self gravity, let alone a child's. While she became emaciated from insulin abuse, I plotted my own famine.

My adolescence became an El Niño of gustatory trial and error. One year I was a compulsive eater, the next a compulsive exerciser, the next a combination. Feeling or knowing actual hunger had not even happened to my system up to this point. Upon graduation from high school, top of my class, lousy with scholarships, I moved away from my emotional totem pole for the first time to college.At about this time I saw a TV interview with someone who had been battling anorexia, and it was all just too good. Realising that being a professional had never been a goal for me, my plan was made. I strove to be anorexic just like my cousin. She was still my four year old's dream. I attempted to tell my mother about my prior eating disorder. She simply shrugged, stated, 'You don't have an eating disorder', and walked into the kitchen to talk with the dog. That decided me: my mother would never again belittle me.

Over the next two years, I survived mostly on sugar-free juice drinks and receded to precisely 45 per cent of my self. My disorder to festered to a point where I was lost within it. Surprisingly, my mother lauded me as something larger than life. I was paraded around the office, with friends, among family and my starved soul fed from these displays. On campus everyone asked me what my secret was, making flippant comments such as, 'Don't you blow away now!' Walking home from the student deli to my dorm one day, I bought a mini-cupcake. I stopped to eat my treasure-feast in a bathroom. I stood there for what seemed like hours, holding the unwrapped treat, leaning against the sink for support, hands shaking, unable to eat it. 'Why can't I do it?' I begged my brain. Collapsing in tears, I threw the cupcake in the bin.

The next year is a blur of sneaking, stealing, laxative overdoses and a suicide attempt. My bones sliced through my skin. I was always cold. The same people who sang my praises became a sea of concerned eyes. I managed a paltry recovery through therapy. I told my mother to go to hell if she was not going to help me. We were closer after that than we'd ever been. Recently I have accomplished goals but, like a small child afraid in the night, my eating-disordered voice still calls.

From WM on www.iwillrecover.com.

Figure-conscious

• One in five people in the UK is classified as obese, and half the population is overweight

• An estimated 1% of British schoolgirls and university students is believed to be anorexic (this estimate is thought to be conservative) and this is only an estimate for the female population. Anorexia generally effects adolescent girls and bulimia effects women in their early to mid twenties

• 48% of women aged 25-35 are on some kind of diet

• Although anorexia and bulimia nervosa catch the media attention, it is obesity that is the major threat to British health

• More school children than ever recorded are now overweight, and as a reaction to this, national directives have come into force (as of 2 April 2001) regulating school dinners to promote healthier children

• Almost 98% of dieters not only regain all the weight they lost, but also add some more

• Courtney Thorne-Smith quit the hit show Ally McBeal, claiming 'the truth is I was systematically depleting myself physically, by undereating and over-exercising, to be impossibly thin'

• Approximately 10% of eating disordered individuals coming to the attention of mental health professionals are male

• A 1998 study from Exeter University surveyed 37,500 girls aged 12-15. 57.5% listed appearance as the biggest concern in their lives

• The same study also showed that 59% of the 12-13 year-old girls who suffered from low self-esteem were dieting

• More than half of teenage girls are, or think they should be, on diets. They want to lose all or some of the 40 pounds that females naturally gain between 8 and 14. About 3% of these go too far, and become anorexic or bulimic

Research by Kirsty Buttfield.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/jun/10/foodanddrink.features4

TV sex content and Teenage Pregnancy

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:38:00 +0000

Sexual content on television is strongly associated with teen pregnancy, a new study from the RAND Corporation shows.

Researchers at the nonprofit organization found that adult who watch sex-saturated TV shows are twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy over the following three years as their peers who don't watch such shows, says a study that is the first to establish the link.

Lead researcher Dr Anita Chandra said: 'Sexual content on television has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research. We found a strong association.'

Teen Pregnancy
The research found that exposure to sex on TV may influence teen pregnancy by creating the perception that there is little risk to engage in sex without using contraceptives and accelerating the initiation of sexual intercourse.

Teenage girls who watch a lot of TV shows with a high sexual content are twice as likely to become pregnant, a study said yesterday.

Boys watching similar shows are also much more likely to get a girl pregnant.

The study of more than 2,000 American youngsters between 12 and 17 is the first to directly link programmes such as Friends and Sex And The City to pregnancy.

A strong association between sexual content on television and teen pregnancy is not surprising, said Dr. Yolanda Wimberly, an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Morehouse School of Medicine and the medical director for the Center for Excellence in Sexual Health. Wimberly, who works in an adolescent clinic, was not involved in the study.

"You cannot expect to have a sexually saturated society with all of your media outlets, but then, at the same time, be surprised when this influences people and their behaviors," she said. "If you're going to do it, then you need to make sure you follow it up with education that people need to make responsible decisions."

It's crucial that parents and guardians talk to their kids about these topics and teach morals and values, but they can do only so much in limiting the amount of sexual content that their teenagers see on television, Wimberly said. Youths will have exposure to these programs outside of the home, such as at friends' houses or on the Internet.

A central message from the study is that there needs to be more dialogue about sex in the media, particularly among parents and their children.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5073047.ece
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a997bX.pjoWw&refer=home
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/03/teen.pregnancy/
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14789092

Sex on TV Linked to Teen Pregnancy in Survey of U.S. Teenagers

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:32:00 +0000

By Nicole Ostrow

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Watching television shows such as ``Gossip Girl'' or ``Desperate Housewives'' that feature sexual content may put U.S. teens at an increased risk of becoming pregnant, a study found.

Boys and girls ages 12 to 17 years old who watched the most sexual content on TV were twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who watched the least sexually suggestive shows, according to research in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The study is the first to find a link between exposure to sexual content on television and teen pregnancies, according to the researchers. Almost 1 million 15- to 19-year-old females become pregnant each year in the U.S. Based on these findings, the television industry needs to balance sexual content in programs with messages about the risks and responsibilities of sex, said study author Anita Chandra.

In these TV programs, ``no one is talking about the negative consequences of sex or contraceptive use,'' said Chandra, a behavioral scientist at Rand Corp., a nonprofit research company based in Santa Monica, California, in an Oct. 31 telephone interview. ``There are many factors that contribute to our high teen pregnancy rate. We're not saying it's the only predictor. It's one factor that should be examined and should be part of the discussion with teens.''

The researchers said parents should consider limiting their kids' access to TV shows with sexual content and spend time watching the programs so they can talk about the consequences of sex.

Staying Vigilant

Cathy Zwilling, a mother of three in Franklin Square, New York, said parents must stay involved in their children's television choices.

``It's something you have to be very vigilant about. You can't just assume that just because they're watching a show that it's OK,'' said Zwilling, who has sons ages 14 and 12 and a 10- year-old daughter. ``You really have to watch with them.''

Some parents and teenagers said it's not realistic to expect parents to constantly police the TV.

Suzie Gagliardi of Holmdel, New Jersey, said she doesn't tell her 17-year-old daughter, Kristin, what to watch.

``If I walk by the TV and see something I don't like, I complain loudly,'' she said. ``I let her hear my displeasure. I don't force her to change the channel. I think it's a part of growing up to hear what parents think.''

Teen's Picks

Emily Chu, a 13-year-old resident of Malverne, New York, a community about 17 miles (27 kilometers) east of New York City, said among the programs she watches are MTV's reality show Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island, and the new version of ``90210.'' The teenager said her parents know about the content of the programs though they don't watch with her.

Researchers asked 2,000 12- to 17-year-old about their television viewing habits and sexual behavior in 2001. The same teens were interviewed in 2002 and 2004.

The study released today was based on about 700 teens who reported having sex by 2004. Their average age in 2004 was 18.

The authors looked at 23 shows popular with teenagers in 2001 on broadcast and cable channels and analyzed their depictions of sex as well as discussions of sex. Those shows included reality programs, animated shows, dramas and comedies.

Sexual Content

About 70 percent to 80 percent of programming in 2001 had some sexual content, Chandra said. That amount is higher today, she said.

``The more content they were exposed to, the greater their risk of pregnancy,'' she said. ``We saw the risk increase even for kids who watch a moderate amount of sexual content.''

The researchers said teens who watched more television with sexual content were more likely to initiate sex earlier and more likely to have looser attitudes about contraceptive use than their peers.

Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters based in Washington, said the group encourages parents to use ``the V-chip and other program blocking technologies that would screen out shows that are inappropriate for children.''

``We would also point out that broadcast television is generally far less explicit than programming found on cable, satellite and on the Internet,'' Wharton said in an e-mail.

Zwilling said even watching sports on TV, as her family does together, can be a challenge.

``If the show itself is appropriate, the commercials that go with the show aren't appropriate,'' she said. ``It becomes sort of a land mine in terms of choosing what you watch and when you watch it.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicole Ostrow in New York at nostrow1@bloomberg.net.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a997bX.pjoWw&refer=home

Teens who watch Sex in the City more likely to get pregnant

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:31:00 +0000

Teenagers who watch Sex in the City, Friends and other TV shows featuring sex scenes and discussions of sex are far more likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant than their peers, a new study has found.

The study, which tracked more than 700 sexually active teenagers aged between 12 and 17 for three years, discovered that those who viewed the most sexual content were almost twice as likely to get pregnant or get their girlfriend pregnant as those who saw the least explicit TV.

The study was lead by Anita Chandra, a behavioural scientist at RAND, an independent research organisation. It is published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr Chandra said that sexual content on TV had doubled in recent years, coinciding with teenage pregnancy rates edging up after decades of decline.

“We were surprised to find this link. But teens spend a good amount of their time watching television — an average of three hours a day — and we don’t know a lot about its impact on their health decisions,” she said.

“Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy. We found a strong association.”

Studies have found a link between watching television shows with sexual content and becoming sexually active earlier, and between sexually explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

But this is the first research to show an association between TV watching and teenage pregnancy.

Dr Chandra and her colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 adolescents aged between 12 and 17 from 2001 to 2004 to gather information about a variety of behavioural and demographic factors, including television viewing habits. They then analysed the sexual content of 23 shows in the 2000-2001 season, and calculated how often the teenagers saw characters kissing, touching, having sex, and discussing past or future sexual activity.

The shows included Sex in the City and Friends, dramas, comedies, reality shows and animated programmes on broadcast and cable networks. Sitcoms had the highest sexual content.

Among the 718 youths who reported being sexually active during the study, the likelihood of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched, the researchers found.

About 25 per cent of those who watched the most were involved in a pregnancy, compared with about 12 per cent of those who watched the least. The researchers said that they took into account other factors such as being from a one-parent family, wanting to have a baby and engaging in other risky behaviours.

“We don’t think that [TV] is necessarily more significant than some of the family and neighbourhood factors that can lead to teen pregnancies. But even when we removed all the other factors, we still saw a compelling link between a high exposure to sexual content on television and teen pregnancies,” Dr Chandra said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5073047.ece

Sex on TV Increases Teen Pregnancy, Says Report

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:27:00 +0000

Sex on TV has come a long way in the past few years. Anyone who saw the first episode of 90210— a pair of students engage in oral sex in the first episode of the new sequel to Beverly Hills 90210 — can attest to that.

The question that has been debated by parents, psychologists and media critics for years is whether such racy content has an adverse affect on young viewers. Now researchers at the Rand Corporation say they have documented for the first time how such exposure can influence teen pregnancy rates. They found that teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV were twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age 20.

"The relationship between exposure of this kind of content on TV and the risk of later pregnancy is fairly strong,' says Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist and the study's author. "Even if it were diminished by other contributing factors, the association still holds.' Such consistent exposure may explain in part why the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is double that of other industrialized nations. Chandra and her team interviewed 1461 teens aged 12 to 17 by phone, speaking to them three times between 2001 and 2004. Where previous studies exploring the effect of TV content on teen pregnancy relied on one-time snapshots of the adolescents' behavior, Chandra believes the continuity of her study reinforces the strength of the relationship she found between exposure to sexual content on television and pregnancy.

Previous research has revealed two major ways that this glamorized perception of sex contributes to teen pregnancy — by encouraging teens to become sexually active early in their adolescence, and by promoting inconsistent use of contraceptives. And, notes Dr. Donald Shifrin, former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Communications, add to this the fact that children are accessing television not just via the big screen at home but on the computer and increasingly on cell phones, and the opportunities for exposure to the sex-based content just explode. "It's not just appointment television, now it's anytime television,' says Shifrin. "And this study was begun seven years ago, so if it were done today, [the authors] would probably find more evidence of sex on screens that affects youngsters' behaviors.'

Yet it's not likely, nor realistic, to expect the television and movie industries to curb the amount of sexual content in their products. That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics created the Media Matters campaign more than a decade ago, to not only promote awareness within the industry of how influential their TV shows and movies are to youngsters, but also to alert parents to the critical role they play in monitoring and mediating what their children watch. Having ammunition in the form of study-based association such as Chandra documented just gives the message more impact.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1855842,00.html

What is Body Image

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:06:00 +0000

"If we place pornography and the tyranny of slenderness alongside one another we have the two most significant obsessions of our culture, and both of them focused upon a woman's body." -Kim Chernin

Body image involves our perception, imagination, emotions, and physical sensations of and about our bodies. It s not static- but ever changing; sensitive to changes in mood, environment, and physical experience. It is not based on fact. It is psychological in nature, and much more influenced by self-esteem than by actual physical attractiveness as judged by others. It is not inborn, but learned. This learning occurs in the family and among peers, but these only reinforce what is learned and expected culturally.

In this culture, we women are starving ourselves, starving our children and loved ones, gorging ourselves, gorging our children and loved ones, alternating between starving and gorging, purging, obsessing, and all the while hating, pounding and wanting to remove that which makes us female: our bodies, our curves, our pear-shaped selves.

"Cosmetic surgery is the fastest growing 'medical' specialty.... Throughout the 80s, as women gained power, unprecedented numbers of them sought out and submitted to the knife...." - Naomi Wolf

The work of feminist object relations theorists such as Susie Orbach (author of Fat is a Feminist Issue, and Hunger Strike: Anorexia as a Metaphor for Our Age) and those at The Women's Therapy Centre Institute (authors of Eating Problems: a Feminist Psychoanalytic Treatment Model) has demonstrated a relationship between the development of personal boundaries and body image. Personal boundaries are the physical and emotional borders around us.. A concrete example of a physical boundary is our skin. It distinguishes between that which is inside you and that which is outside you. On a psychological level, a person with strong boundaries might be able to help out well in disasters- feeling concerned for others, but able to keep a clear sense of who they are. Someone with weak boundaries might have sex with inappropriate people, forgetting where they end and where others begin. Such a person way not feel "whole" when alone.

Our psychological boundaries develop early in life, based on how we are held and touched (or not held and touched). A person who is deprived of touch as an infant or young child, for example, may not have the sensory information s/he needs to distinguish between what is inside and what is outside her/himself. As a result, boundaries may be unclear or unformed. This could cause the person to have difficulty getting an accurate sense of his/her body shape and size. This person might also have difficulty eating, because they might have trouble sensing the physical boundaries of hunger and fullness or satiation. On the other extreme, a child who is sexually or physically abused may feel terrible pain and shame or loathing associated to his/her body. Such a person might use food or starvation to continue the physical punishments they grew familiar with in childhood.

Developing a Healthy Body Image

Here are some guidelines (Adapted from BodyLove: Learning to Like Our Looks and Ourselves, Rita Freeman, Ph.D.) that can help you work toward a positive body image:

1. Listen to your body. Eat when you are hungry.
2 .Be realistic about the size you are likely to be based on your genetic and environmental history..
3. Exercise regularly in an enjoyable way, regardless of size.
4. Expect normal weekly and monthly changes in weight and shape
5. Work towards self acceptance and self forgiveness- be gentle with yourself.
6. Ask for support and encouragement from friends and family when life is stressful.
7. Decide how you wish to spend your energy -- pursuing the "perfect body image" or enjoying family, friends, school and, most importantly, life.

Think of it as the three A's....

Attention -- Refers to listening for and responding to internal cues (i.e., hunger, satiety, fatigue).

Appreciation -- Refers to appreciating the pleasures your body can provide.

Acceptance -- Refers to accepting what is -- instead of longing for what is not.

Healthy body weight is the size a person naturally returns to after a long period of both non-compulsive eating* and consistent exercise commensurate with the person' s physical health and condition. We must learn to advocate for ourselves and our children to aspire to a naturally determined size, even though that will often mean confronting misinformed family, friends, and media advertising again and again.

*Simply stated, non-compulsive eating means eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are satisfied. This involves being able to distinguish emotional hunger from physical hunger, and satiation from over fullness.

Judy Lightstone, M.F.T. is a licensed Marriage, Family, Child Counselor. She has a private practice where she works with individuals and couples. She can be contacted at www.psychotherapist.org. For more on this article visit http://www.psychotherapist.org/Index_archives_bodyimage.htm. Permission for use granted by Judy Lightstone

Bibliography:
The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness, by Kim Chernin, Harper & Row, 1982.
BodyLove: Learning to Like Our Looks and Ourselves, Rita Freeman, Ph.D., Harper & Row, 1988
Transforming Body Image: Learning to Love the Body You Have by Marcia Germaine Hutchinson, EdD , The Crossing Press, 1985
Fat is a Feminist Issue, by Susie Orbach
Hunger Strike: Anorexia as a Metaphor for Our Age, by Susie Orbach, Norton Books, 1986
The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf, Doubleday, 1991
Eating Problems: a Feminist Psychoanalytic Treatment Model, by The Women's Therapy Centre Institute, Basic Books, 1994
Source: EDrefferal

How You Can Help Your Child Overcome an Eating Disorder

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:07:00 +0000

We live in a society that teaches our children that they are not enough. They are constantly bombarded with messages that they aren’t thin enough, pretty enough, muscular enough or handsome enough. The music videos, video games, movies, television shows, commercials and magazines that target young consumers advertise that to be a desirable female is to be very thin, beautiful and young and to be a desirable male is to be muscular and handsome. Is it any wonder so many of our children strive for perfection, often resulting in lowered self-esteem because they are trying to attain the unattainable? Desperate to achieve what society deems they should be, many young women and men, girls and boys, develop eating disorders.

Societal messages are not the sole cause of eating disorders. Research has found that disordered eating is often the result of a number of biological, social, psychological and environmental factors. (Schmidt, 2002). Once a diagnosis is made revealing that your son or daughter has an eating disorder, you may begin to question how this could have happened. It is normal to feel overwhelmed, angry, frightened, embarrassed and possibly guilty. It is important to understand that no one event or comment produces an eating disorder. Focus on support, not blame.

Talking about the Eating Disorder
Talking about your child’s eating disorder may be extremely difficult for both you and your child; however, it is better to confront the issues and negative feelings. Don’t be afraid to express anger, confusion or frustration and encourage your child to do so as well. You may find it tempting to try and convince your child that his or her weight is fine; you will likely be more successful if you discuss the eating disorder directly. Researchers have developed the “IMAD” approach to guide people in talking to their loved ones about their illness (Levine and Hill 1991). Focus on the inefficiency, misery, alienation and disturbance that the illness is causing in your child’s life. Externalize the problem. For example do not let your child become one with the eating disorder, but present it as an entity outside of your child that is affecting the quality of his or her life. Do not make your child feel attacked or ashamed. Be very open and honest about the problem and talk about the impact of it in a very straightforward manner.

Inefficiency is a term you can use to describe how the eating disorder prevents your child from accomplishing things. Discuss the consequences that result from either a restricted diet or purging behaviours. What are the effects of physical weakness, sadness, anxiety, low energy and poor concentration? What is the impact of time spent on the eating disorder? How do all of these factors interfere with relationships with friends and family, school life, social activities and other personal goals?

Misery sums up the emotional consequences of an eating disorder. Talk to your child about feeling anger, depression, anxiety, guilt or other negative emotions. Ask how often these emotions are linked to the eating disorder.

Alienation may occur due to the persistent obsession with eating, weight, exercise and body image. Social isolation and feelings that no one else could possibly understand may cause an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Help your child to think about ways he or she has been cut off from other family members, friends and even from him- or herself.

Disturbance is a term you can use to talk about the behaviours your child is exhibiting that are upsetting to either to herself or others. For example: eating secretly, hoarding food, taking laxatives, repeatedly weighing themselves, vomiting. Moodiness, irritability and impulsive behaviours such as: lying, being promiscuous or stealing may also be connected to an eating disorder.

Talking about Body Image and Health
Discussing healthy ways to think about shape, weight and eating is one of the most helpful things you can do in parenting your children. Raise thought-provoking topics in order to help everyone become aware of their own thoughts and behaviours and the role that society plays in promoting beauty myths about thinness. Also, very important is working together to change the language your family uses to describe body types and eating.

Talking with Your Family
Family involvement is imperative because of the important role the family environment plays in your child’s recovery. Recovery is generally best facilitated when the family works together and not against one another.

Establish and maintain open communication and supportive relationships within the family. Research indicates that your relationship with your children influences the way they see themselves. Relationships which are supportive and affectionate let children know that they are loved and accepted. Children who feel loved and supported are likely to develop higher self-esteem which may consequently help them to feel good about themselves despite the messages they receive from the entertainment and fashion industries.

Remember that everyone in the family is affected by the eating disorder. Consider the needs of all family members.

Create clear and realistic expectations.

Always remember that you are setting an example for your children. Think about the messages you may be sending through your language, behaviour and reactions to emotional situations.

Bibliography
Hall, Lindsey, & Ostroff, Monika
Bulimia: A Guide to Recovery. Publishers Group West, 1999

Meadow, Rosalyn, & Weiss, Lillie
Women's Conflicts about Eating and Sexuality: The Relationship Between Food and Sex. Haworth Press, 1993

Normandi, Carol, & Roark, Lauralee
Over It: A Teen's Guide to Getting Beyond Obsessions with Food and Weight. New World Library, 2001

Pipher, Mary
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. Ballantine Books, 1995

Roth, Geneen
When Food is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy.
Plume, 1992

Teachman, Bethany, Schwartz, Marlene, Gordic, Bonnie, & Coyle, Brenda
Helping Your Child Overcome an Eating Disorder: What You Can Do at Home.
New Harbinger, 2003

Source: Blossom-Counseling

Eating Disorders on Teenage

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:58:00 +0000

Recent studies suggest that 1 in 5 college women struggle with an eating disorder. Signs of eating disorders include: preoccupation with food and thinness, excessive exercise, refusal to eat, noticeable and extreme weight loss, depressed mood, withdrawal from friends, low self-esteem, and negative body image.

Eating disorders impact a wide range of students from heterosexual men, women of color, international students, and sexual minorities.

Anorexia involves an attempt to control one's weight by restricting the amount of food eaten. Anorexia tends to begin during high school or college with an attempt to "lose a few pounds” which then may lead to a tremendous fear of becoming fat. Individuals struggling with anorexia may lose their menstrual periods, feel physically cold often, suffer from dry skin and hair, low blood pressure, and heart difficulties. Concentration can become diminished, impacting a student’s ability to learn and do well in classes. The malnourishment associated with anorexia may lead to death.

Bulimia involves a cycle of uncontrolled eating, or "binging", followed by purging behaviors. Purging behaviors may include: vomiting, the use of laxatives, and excessive exercise. The physical effects of bulimia can be quite serious including damage to tooth enamel, stomach, esophagus, kidney problems, and seizures. Electrolyte imbalances can result in sudden cardiac failure and death.

Binge Eating Disorder is a condition in which people binge on large numbers of calories at one time, but do not purge. Compulsive overeaters feel out of control with their eating habits, and may suffer from low self-esteem and body image. They may eat when they feel stressed, or may binge after attempting to eat normally for a period of time. Because of the secretive nature of their eating, compulsive overeaters often feel isolated, but they may fear being ostracized if others were to find out.

Body Image
Body image is how an individual perceives, feels and experiences her or his body. It involves how you think and feel about your appearance and what it is like to live in your body. Body image exists on a continuum with individuals who largely feel positively about their body at one end of the continuum. These individuals do not tie their self esteem to their pant size or whether they are perceived attractive by others. They base their self esteem on a variety of factors. At the other end of the continuum are those individuals who feel very negatively about their body the majority of the time, experiencing shame related to their appearance. These individuals are more likely to tie their self worth to their body shape and level of attractiveness. People with negative body image are more likely to develop eating disorders.

It is estimated that around eighty percent of all women struggle with their body image. It is also believed that an increasing number of men feel negatively about their bodies. An individual’s body image is impacted by many factors including one’s overall self esteem, relationships and exposure to the media.

There are many ways to improve one’s body image. One strategy is to seek out individual and/or group counseling. An additional strategy involves reading one of the many self-help books available on this topic. See “Eating Disorders and Body Image Readings” section of this website.

Here are some simple helpful suggestions for improving your body image:

Decrease your exposure to media that promotes limited examples of beauty. This includes magazines, television shows, movies, and music videos. If you find yourself feeling badly about your body after watching a certain television show, consider no longer viewing the program. If you feel negatively about your appearance after reading a particular magazine, stop subscribing to the magazine.

Don’t criticize yourself when you look in the mirror. Consider having a different conversation with yourself. Remind yourself of all of the positive qualities you possess including physical and personal attributes. Hang notes around your mirror to remind you of all of your wonderful traits and gifts.

Challenge the relationship between your self worth and appearance. If appearance is an influence on a person’s self esteem, it should only be a small piece. Find other ways to feel good about yourself other than working on your appearance. Examples include developing enjoyable hobbies, volunteering for a cause important to you, or increasing your knowledge in an area that interests you.

Wear clothes that you make you feel good. Fashion trends keep changing in order for the industry to make money. If you don’t feel good about your appearance in the latest trends, finds clothes that help you feel comfortable and pleased with your body.

source:Towson.edu

7 Parenting Tips on Positive Body Image - Help your Teen Develop a Positive Body Image

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:22:00 +0000

As a parent of a teen, you can help him/her relate to food in a healthy way and create a positive body image by using these seven tips:

Create and maintain a door to open communication. This is often, and sometimes the only, step to many of the problems parents have with their teenagers. So work on keeping that door open.

Avoid talking negatively about food, weight, etc. Also avoid talking about how ‘good’ someone looks because they are thin.
Have fun and nutritious food available for your teenager all of the time as teens get hungry 24/7.
Be careful of what the media is portraying to your teenager about body image. Limit the television and teen magazines. Watch or read with them so you can talk about what your teen is seeing.
Compliment actions – what they do is more important than how they look!
Make food interesting and cool. Find healthy and fun recipes your teen will enjoy making, then let them invite a friend to “play” in the kitchen. Smoothie recipes are great for this purpose.
Encourage awareness in your community by taking part in a talk at a PTA meeting, or becoming involved in a youth organization with your teenager and actively promoting against size and sexual discrimination through positive activity.

How the Media Affects Teen Girls

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:13:00 +0000

This article ponders some serious questions about how the media affects teen girls, and especially how it damages their self esteem, and what we as parents can do about it.

Teenage Girls + Media = Low Self-Esteem

Is it really true that teenage girls + media = low self-esteem?
The issue of media's impact on teenagers has generated a lot of interest in the last decade. Despite contradictory findings, all researchers agree that teenage girls as a group are focused on their looks—especially on what they don’t like about themselves! Marketing departments and ad agencies spend millions each year targeting teenage girls who spend much of their hard-earned dollars (and their parents’ hard-earned dollars!) on looking good. Although the message of “girl power” is prevalent in today's marketing messages, so is the irrefutable idea that “sexy” and “thin” are in!

The dieting industry alone generates 40 billion dollars per year in America. If you believe diets are just for adults, you will be shocked to learn that a Harvard study (Fat Talk, Harvard University Press) published in 2000 revealed that 86% of teenage girls are on a diet or believe they should be on one. Diets are common among both teens and children. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 51% of 9 and 10-year-old girls actually feel better about themselves when on a diet. As a society, our obsession with thin is relatively new. Most people (especially teens) are shocked to find that sex icon Marilyn Monroe actually wore a size 14!

But pick up a fashion magazine today and you'll find models who are thinner than 98% of all the girls and women in America. Turn on a television and see 'sexy' celebrities such as Shania Twain, Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson baring their flesh. It is these role models who have become the standard of what is in vogue in the twenty-first century.

Do Teenage Girls have Low Self-esteem because of Media?

One of the most fascinating shows on self-image for teens was aired on Discovery Channel’s “Sex Files” program (Episode 12: Girl Power). During the show, they reported on eating disorders on the island of Fiji. In 1995, this tropical paradise had only 3 percent of girls with eating disorders in 1995.

Then western television programs were introduced, including “hits” such as ER, Melrose Place and Xena: Warrior Princess. Three years later, the eating disorders in girls on the island rose to 15%. A surprising follow-up study reported 74% of Fijian girls feeling “too fat or big” and 62% had dieted in the last month—surprising in a culture that typically upholds curvaceous women as beautiful.

Five Ways to Ensure Media Does Not Contribute To Low Self-esteem in Teenage Girls

Fortunately, parents have a huge impact on a teenage girl’s self-esteem—more so than even the media. Thus, there is much we as parents can do to ensure our teenage girls' self-esteem soars! Here are five helpful parenting tips:

1. Encourage and Support Your Daughter’s Achievements and Passions.
Focus on what it is that your teenage daughter is good at. If she enjoys math, animals or singing, support her. Acknowledge the presence of pretty girls in the media with, “Obviously outward beauty is one of her gifts. You’ve got many gifts yourself!” Then name these gifts as well as you can.

2. Help your Daughter Get in Touch with Reality.
We are bombarded with perfect idealized models of what a woman should look like. But the fact is less than 1% of the girls out there will ever become a super model. Besides, no one can compete with computer airbrushing! Share these facts with your daughter. And please note that if you are complaining about your own “thunder thighs”, this message is going straight to your daughter’s heart. Make a commitment to raise
your own self-image. No one, including you, is perfect. It is our imperfections that actually make us human. Having the courage to be imperfect makes our life easier and much more joyful.

3. Focus on a Healthy Lifestyle – The less junk food you keep around the house, the less you and your family will eat it! Do you and your family a favor—stock up on the healthy stuff and refrain from insisting on second helpings. If the scale in your home is a bit of an obsession, consider tossing it out. Instead focus on how well and how healthy each of you feels instead.

4. Contribute to Others – Our preoccupation with our own weight can be positively transformed when we start focusing on others. Volunteerism boosts self-esteem. Volunteer as a family, bring a smile to others, and you'll all be reminded of how truly fortunate you are.

5. Encourage Dad to Pay Attention in a Positive Way – Help Dad understand how detrimental well intentioned teasing about weight or looks can be. Encourage him to spend time with his daughter focusing on all the things that she is great

It is sad that many teenage girls and women believe that they need to be someone other than who they truly are. It is time to come clean for ourselves, for the race of woman and for our children, by beginning to love the person we are—flaws and all. Embracing our imperfection gives us the opportunity to see all the awesome things about ourselves: to acknowledge that we do have nice eyes, nice breasts, nice legs, nice whatever! And as we stop hiding our flaws, suddenly our psychological zits will become the beauty marks that make us stand out from the
crowd.

Kelly Nault, MA author of When You’re About To Go Off The Deep End, Don’t Take Your Kids With You shares time-tested tools that motivate children to want to be well behaved, responsible and happy! Sign up for her free online parenting course here.

Media's Effect On Girls: Body Image And Gender Identity

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:11:00 +0000

Did you know?

Gender identity begins in toddlerhood (identifying self as a girl or boy) with gender roles being assigned to tasks early in the preschool years (Durkin, 1998).

A child's body image develops as the result of many influences:
A newborn begins immediately to explore what her body feels like and can do. This process continues her whole life.
A child's body image is influenced by how people around her react to her body and how she looks.
A pre-adolescent becomes increasingly aware of what society's standards are for the "ideal body."

Media's Effect on Body Image

The popular media (television, movies, magazines, etc.) have, since World War II, increasingly held up a thinner and thinner body (and now ever more physically fit) image as the ideal for women. The ideal man is also presented as trim, but muscular.
In a survey of girls 9 and 10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (USA Today, 1996).
A 1996 study found that the amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos is associated with their degree of body dissatisfaction and desire to be thin (Tiggemann & Pickering, 1996).

One author reports that at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are "unhappy with their bodies." This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen (Brumberg, 1997).
In a study among undergraduates media consumption was positively associated with a strive for thinness among men and body dissatisfaction among women (Harrison & Cantor, 1997).

Teen-age girls who viewed commercials depicting women who modeled the unrealistically thin-ideal type of beauty caused adolescent girls to feel less confident, more angry and more dissatisfied with their weight and appearance (Hargreaves, 2002).

In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends" (Mundell, 2002).

In another recent study on media's impact on adolescent body dissatisfaction, two researchers found that:
Teens who watched soaps and TV shows that emphasized the ideal body typed reported higher sense of body dissatisfaction. This was also true for girls who watched music videos.
Reading magazines for teen girls or women also correlated with body dissatisfaction for girls.
Identification with television stars (for girls and boys), and models (girls) or athletes (boys), positively correlated with body dissatisfaction (Hofschire & Greenberg, 2002).

Media's Effect on Gender Identity

Many children watch between two and four hours of television per day. The presence or absence of role models, how women and men, girls and boys are presented, and what activities they participate in on the screen powerfully affect how girls and boys view their role in the world. Studies looking at cartoons, regular television, and commercials show that although many changes have occurred and girls, in particular have a wider range of role models, for girls "how they look" is more important than "what they do."

In a 1997 study designed to study how children described the roles of cartoon characters, children (ages four to nine) "perceived most cartoon characters in stereotypical ways: boys were violent and active and girls were domestic, interested in boys, and concerned with appearances" (Thompson, 1997).
In another study, three weeks of Saturday morning toy commercials were analyzed. Results found that:
50% of the commercials aimed at girls spoke about physical attractiveness, while none of the commercials aimed at boys referenced appearance.
Boys acted aggressively in 50% of the commercials aimed at them, while none of the girls behaved aggressively.

With regard to work roles, no boys had unpaid labor roles, and girls were mainly shown in traditional female jobs or roles of unpaid labor (Sobieraj, 1996).
Dr. Nancy Signorielli, Professor of Communications at the University of Delaware examined the types of media most often viewed by adolescent girls: television, commercials, films, music videos, magazines and advertisements. While the study did find positive role models of women and girls using their intelligence and acting independently, the media also presented an overwhelming message that girls and women were more concerned with romance and dating (and it follows how they look), while men focus on their occupations (Signorielli, 1997).

Sources
Brumberg, J. J. (1997). The Body project: An intimate history of American girls. NY: Random House.
Durkin, K. and Nugent, B. (1998, March). Kindergarten children's gender-role expectations for television actors. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 38, 387- 403.
Hargreaves, D. (2002). Idealized Women in TV Ads Make Girls Feel Bad. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 21, 287-308.
Harrison, K. and Cantor, J. (1997). The relationship between media consumption and eating disorders. Journal of Communication, 47, 40-67.
Hofschire, L. J., and Greenberg, B. S. (2002). Media's impact on adolescents' body dissatisfaction. In J. D. Brown, J. R. Steele, and K. Walsh-Childers (Eds.) Sexual Teens, Sexual Media. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Mundell, EJ. (2002. August 26). Sitcoms, Videos Make Even Fifth-Graders Feel Fat. Reuters Health (last visited 9/16/02)
Signorielli, N. (1997, April). Reflections of girls in the media: A two-part study on gender and media. Kaiser Family foundation and Children NOW. (last visited 9/6/02)
Sobieraj, S. (1996). Beauty and the beast: toy commercials and the social construction of gender. American Sociological Association, Sociological Abstracts, 044.
Thompson, T. and Zerbinos, E. (1997). Television cartoons: Do children notice it's a boy's world? Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 37, 415-433.
Tiggemann, M., and Pickering, A. S. (1996). Role of television in adolescent women's body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 20, 199-203.
USA Today, (1996, August 12). p 01D.

The Effects Media Has on Teenagers Body Image

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:04:00 +0000

The effect media has on teenagers' body image is immeasurable. Each year thousands of teenagers use diet and exercise to conform to an image that has been created by the media. For many teens, becoming a model is the ultimate goal. Being worshipped for beauty is more important than scholarship or being true to oneself.
Body Image
No one in high school can deny that how you look has much to do with your popularity status. While parents often reject that looks matter, their teen children know the score. No one wants to be known as the teen that has a great personality, as those are often the keywords to describe someone who is unattractive.

How did the media gain such control over our lives? Perhaps it began during Hollywood’s glamour years when the public yearned to look as beautiful as the pin up girls and as handsome as the leading men on the silver screen. Today, the magazines that line the shelves of our book and retail stores speak to our infatuation of looking like Hollywood actors and actresses. Maxim, Interview, Elle and Cosmopolitan all feature young and beautiful people from the big screen. It is no wonder that teens who consume these magazines try to strive for this type of fleeting beauty. They believe that the key to success is looking beautiful on the outside.

Diet or Die Trying
Jennifer Love-Hewitt was panned for her revealing pictures in a bathing suit while on vacation with her fiancé. Ms. Love-Hewitt is a size 2, which many would agree is rather small. Yet the public’s fascination with everything perfect and Barbie-like has clouded our judgment. Instead of applauding someone who feels comfortable enough with their body to wear a bikini, we skewer them for not meeting our perceptions of a perfect body. To her credit, Jennifer defended her body and the right to wear a bikini on her website. She also encouraged every woman to defend their right to wear what they wish proudly and without fear of other people’s opinions. If only it were that easy for the majority of teenagers who feel they don’t live up to Hollywood’s standards.
Bulemia and Anorexia
Bulemia and anorexia are two diseases that have plagued young people for decades. Each year thousands of impressionable teens, both girls and boys, fall victim to these eating disorders, and many die from them. In some people, the desire to have the perfect body is so strong that they are willing to trade their health in exchange for fitting into size zero jeans. Many teens are unaware of the long-term health issues caused by these diseases. Tooth and hair loss, cancer of the stomach and esophagus, heart problems and even death can result.
Fad Dieting
Fad diets are problematic for teens that are still growing. Dieting without medical supervision can result in stunted growth and a compromised immune system that is unable to fight off minor illnesses. A fad diet is one that promises great weight loss results quickly. The problem with fad diets is that they rarely incorporate good nutrition and almost guarantee that once you quit the diet, the weight that you lost will quickly return.

The Effects Media has on Teenagers Body Image
Today, the effect media has on teenagers' body image is mostly negative. The constant parade of beautiful people on television and in print has fostered negative body images for teens. Unless we look like those actors and actresses we admire, we just aren’t living up to society's standards.

What can teens do?
If you are a teen and are struggling with your own body image, take heart. The modeling industry has even begun to wake up to the fact that waif thin models are usually ill. This past year, runway models had to meet certain weight standards in order to be allowed to model in European fashion shows. More actresses are looking like real people do (fact: the average woman in the United States is a size 16), such as America Ferrera and Drew Barrymore.

Parents can help their teens combat negative body images by acknowledging models and actors or actresses are not the standard by which we measure our children. Fad diets are unhealthy and proper nutrition is more important than weight loss. If parents encourage and accept teens for the way they look right now, it can go a long way in creating a positive self-image that will last a lifetime..

The Frugal Teenager, Ready or Not

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:37:00 +0000

By JAN HOFFMAN
Published: October 10, 2008

WHEN Wendy Postle's two children were younger, saying "yes" gave her great joy. Yes to all those toys. The music lessons. The blowout birthday parties.

But as her son and daughter approached adolescence, yes turned into a weary default. "Sometimes it was just easier to say, 'O.K., whatever,' than to have the battle of 'no,' " said Mrs. Postle, a working mother who lives in Hilliard, Ohio, a middle-class suburb of Columbus.

This year her husband's 401(k) savings are evaporating. Medical bills are nipping at the couple's heels. Gas prices are still taking a toll. Mrs. Postle recently decided that although she and her husband had always sacrificed their own luxuries for Zach, 13, and Kaitlyn, 15, the teenagers would now have to cut back as well.

"No" could no longer be the starting gun of family fights. It would have to be an absolute.

"I tried to tell Kaitlyn, 'We'll get the Hollister jeans at a thrift store,' " Mrs. Postle recalled. "She got angry and said: 'That's gross! Other people wore them!' "

Indulged. Entitled. Those labels have become hot-glued to middle-class and affluent teenagers born after the last major economic downturn, in the late 1980s. They were raised in comparatively flush times by parents who believed that keeping children happy, stimulated and successful, no matter the cost, was an unassailable virtue. A 2007 study by the Harrison Group, a market research firm in Waterbury, Conn., found that nearly 75 percent of parents caved in to their children's nagging for new video games, half within two weeks.

But as the economy totters, many families have no choice but to cut back, which may lead to a shift in their thinking about money and permissiveness. Last week a semiannual survey of 7,000 15- to 18-year-olds by Piper Jaffray, an investment bank and research firm, showed that annual discretionary spending by teenagers, whose money comes from allowance, gifts and part-time jobs, had dropped 27 percent to $2,600, from its spring 2006 peak of $3,560.

"Parents are suddenly saying 'no' and their kids are saying, 'What do you mean?' " said Robert D. Manning, an economist at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of "Credit Card Nation."

These are difficult conversations. Panicked, stressed parents are struggling to explain and impose restraints, just when teenagers are expecting more spending money, not less. Many adolescents respond with anger at what they see as a bait-and-switch world, fear for their families and confusion about budgeting.

Family therapists, teachers and parents tell anecdotes about teenagers who are badly rattled by the news, in denial, or both. A daughter is shaken as her mother calls for an emergency family meeting. The son of a Wall Street financier whose fortune has collapsed tauntingly tells his father he can take care of himself: he will sell more marijuana.

"It is an unbelievable shock to affluent families that their lifestyles are gone for good," Dr. Manning said, "and their children are ill prepared for it."

Mrs. Postle's teenagers asked whether the family was poor. Mrs. Postle, who teaches economics at the Columbus chapter of Junior Achievement and whose husband manages heating and cooling commercial installations, felt insulted.

The family was not poverty-stricken, she responded, but staying solvent was costly. Although many parents consider finances the province of grown-ups, Mrs. Postle decided her children were too insulated. She showed them the monthly bills.

The teenagers were stunned. When her son saw the mortgage bill he thought it was an annual payment.

American teenagers, many of whom have weak quantitative skills, are generally naïve about finance. In a 2007 study for Charles Schwab, the financial services company, 62 percent of teenagers believed they were prepared to deal with the financial world after high school. That boast was undercut when they were probed about topics like check-writing and paying bills.

One recent morning, students in an economics seminar at Elisabeth Irwin High School, a private school in Manhattan, displayed an emerging grasp of the financial meltdown. But when discussing their personal finances, many just seemed bewildered.

National surveys put older teenagers' average monthly allowance at $100 and upward. At Elisabeth Irwin, the weekly allowances ranged from $20 to $150. Some parents gave students strict allocation instructions; others, only vague direction.

And while many had debit and credit cards, some were hard pressed to explain the difference. "I don't understand why I got charged for an overdraft," one junior said. One girl admitted to having once run up $5,000 on her credit card. Lesson learned! Now she rarely uses the card. " I make my mom buy it!" she said.

To "earn" spending money, some students were required to do minimal chores, others to maintain minimal civility.

Regardless of family means, most did not have after-school jobs.

"I've never had a job," said Nazir Khan, 16, a first-generation American whose father is a cook and whose mother is an occasional caregiver. "My parents want me to focus on schoolwork."

They all felt the pressure and the desire to acquire: their knowledge of brands and prices was encyclopedic. "The stuff it takes for them to be perceived as middle class is extraordinary," said Tom Murphy, who teaches the high school's "Economics and Society" seminar. "Laptops, Xboxes, iPods, phones — and it's nonnegotiable."

The messages about money from their families struck some as contradictory. Joe Sharp, 16, said his parents had given him whatever he wanted. But his grandmother would talk about World War II and rationing. "I'd say, 'It's not the war, we're fine,' " he said. "But she taught me that saving is definitely important."

After class, one girl said: "We are so being bribed. I'm bad at math but if I get an A, my father will give me a designer bag."

And yet, she added shyly: "I love the gifts but I'd really like to spend time with him. But my parents are working harder than ever and they're so worried. I don't want to force him to spend time with me. I can be a real earache."

Discernable in their anecdotes were the abrupt, flailing efforts of parents to rein in their teenagers, as difficult economic times bear down.

One girl said: "My dad will buy three new shirts but then he'll tell me to cut down on my spending. So I don't know what to think."

A junior recounted a fight with her father. She had shouted: "I can afford the things I buy because I don't have to pay expenses or rent." He had retorted: "Now you're going to: $25 a night and $15 for your friends who stay over!" (Threat rescinded.)

Some students were beginning to translate the economic crisis personally. A few thought it had become unseemly to flaunt goods with designer labels. Ruth Jurgensen, the principal of the diverse school, noted that many students were alarmed about dwindling college aid.

Even their fear frightens them. Chappell Laird, 16, knows that her father, a restaurant owner, and mother, a photographer's agent, are affected by the economic downturn. But she doesn't seek further information. "It scares me to know more," she said. "It makes me nervous."

Parents hardly relish these conversations. As they sit down with their teenagers, they are agonizing over their own feelings of failure. "Parents are going to feel they're not giving their kids everything," said Madeline Levine, a California psychologist who writes about adolescents in her book "The Price of Privilege." "The kids are going to be confused. They've never known not having what they want. And the parents are going to have to tolerate their kids' anger."

Wendy Postle said her teenagers have become angrier and more argumentative about money. "They seem so selfish," she said. She wondered whether the fault was hers, whether that early lavishness was a parental failing.

In familial relationships, money can be a proxy for love and trust, said Steven J. Goldstein, a psychologist who teaches at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in Manhattan. When money has to be limited, underlying tensions become exacerbated. In his practice he has recently seen adolescent eating disorders become more severe and mood swings increase.

But for some families, he added, the financial crisis has been a rallying point, compelling them to articulate values and priorities for the first time. An unemployed father, he said, learned to speak with his teenagers "in such a way that they wouldn't panic, but gave them a sense that he was going through a different journey, not one just filled with success."

Last month Hildegaard Link's two daughters, 15 and 11, rushed home, frightened by headlines about the stock market. The older one "totally freaked out," recalled Ms. Link, a civil engineer in Brooklyn. "She asked: 'What does this mean for me? For my family?' "

Ms. Link reassured her but asked whether everyone could do with a little less. "Let's brainstorm."

The girls made choices: lessons for either drum or violin, every two weeks; fewer restaurant dinners; one new school outfit. "They were not resentful," Ms. Link reported. "They were relieved to be part of the process."

Market researchers say that teenagers are, out of necessity, adjusting. Jeffrey Klinefelter, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, said last week's survey showed that the amount teenagers allocated for clothes had increased 1 percent, but that they were patronizing stores with lower-priced labels.

Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, the market research firm, said he had seen an evolution in family negotiations. As parents drop housecleaning and lawn services, they are asking their teenagers to pitch in, for pay.

"That reduces the cash flow for parents without reducing discretionary spending for kids," he said. "Parents are asking kids to take responsibility for what is really important to them."

Anecdotes like these prompt economists and therapists to find something positive in all the economic turbulence. "The sooner we have these conversations in the family and as a society," said Dr. Manning, the economist, "the sooner we can focus on core values, and have a more realistic dialogue about the meaning of happiness and money."

KAITLYN POSTLE is having a bumpy adjustment. She has a weekend baby-sitting job and can't wait to turn 16, so she can find work at a mall.

"I used to ask for things and my parents would say, 'We can't do that,' " she said in a phone interview. "So I would throw a tantrum and get an attitude. They used to give in a lot. But that doesn't work now."

The good news, she said, is that when she shops at thrift stores, she can buy more for her money. But now that she has a temporary license — freedom! — how will she pay for gas?

She assumes she will have to attend a local college and live at home. "I don't have a problem with that," she said. "Whatever. That way, I won't have to pay for everything."

In the background, a half-shout of protest could be heard. "Of course," Kaitlyn added, "my parents aren't too happy about that."

--

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/fashion/sundaystyles/12teen.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

http://venteinternet.blogspot.com |
http://pusatinternetmarketing.blogspot.com |
http://webandblogdesign.blogspot.com

Chile Teenager's Sex Awakening

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:16:00 +0000

It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America’s most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaetón beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings.

The place is a tangle of lips and tongues and hands, all groping and exploring. About 800 teenagers sway and bounce to lyrics imploring them to “Poncea! Poncea!”: make out with as many people as they can.

And make out they do — with stranger after stranger, vying for the honor of being known as the “ponceo,” the one who pairs up the most.

Chile, long considered to have among the most traditional social mores in South America, is crashing headlong into that reputation with its precocious teenagers. Chile’s youths are living in a period of sexual exploration that, academics and government officials say, is like nothing the country has witnessed before.

“Chile’s youth are clearly having sex earlier and testing the borderlines with their sexual conduct,” said Dr. Ramiro Molina, director of the University of Chile’s Center for Adolescent Reproductive Medicine and Development.

The sexual awakening is happening through a booming industry for 18-and-under parties, an explosion of Internet connectivity and through Web sites like Fotolog, where young people trade suggestive photos of each other and organize weekend parties, some of which have drawn more than 4,500 teenagers. The online networks have emboldened teenagers to express themselves in ways that were never customary in Chile’s conservative society.

“We are not the children of the dictatorship; we are the children of democracy,” said Michele Bravo, 17, at a recent afternoon party. “There is much more of a rebellious spirit among young people today. There is much more freedom to explore everything.”

The parents and grandparents of today’s teenagers fought hard to give them such freedoms and to escape the book-burning times of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. But in a country that legalized divorce only in 2004 and still has a strict ban on abortion, the feverish sexual exploration of the younger generation is posing new challenges for parents and educators. Sex education in public schools is badly lagging, and the pregnancy rate among girls under 15 has been on the rise, according to the Health Ministry.

Indeed, adolescent sexuality has changed throughout Latin America, Dr. Ramiro said, and underlying much of the newfound freedom is an issue that societies the world over are grappling with: the explosion of explicit content and social networks on the Internet.

Chilean society was shaken last year when a video of a 14-year-old girl eagerly performing oral sex on a teenage boy on a Santiago park bench was discovered on a video-hosting Web site. The episode became a national scandal, stirring finger-pointing at the girl’s school, at the Internet provider — at everyone, it seemed, but the boys who captured the event on a cellphone and distributed the video.

Chile’s stable, market-based economy has helped to drive the changes, spurring a boom in consumer spending and credit unprecedented in the country’s history. Chile has become Latin American’s biggest per-capita consumer of digital technology, including cellphones, cable television and Internet broadband accounts, according to a study by the Santiago consulting firm Everis and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Navarra in Spain.

Chileans are plugged into the Internet at higher rates than other South Americans, and the highest use is among children ages 6 to 17. Therein lies a central factor in the country’s newfound sexual exploration, said Miguel Arias, a psychologist and head of the Santiago consulting firm Divergente.

Fotolog, a photo-sharing network created in the United States, took off in the last two years in this country. Today Chile, which has a population of 16 million, has 4.8 million Fotolog accounts, more than any other country, the company says. Again, children ages 12 to 17 hold more than 60 percent of the accounts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13chile.html?hp

Beijing Olympic Closing

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Beijing bids farewell to Olympics

The Olympic Games have drawn to a close with a glittering ceremony inside Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium.
Spectacular fireworks kicked off the proceedings, while a beautifully choreographed drumming and dancing display recalled the opening ceremony.
It was a more celebratory affair, as exuberant athletes, dancers and musicians got into the party spirit.
The Olympic flag was handed to London mayor Boris Johnson, with organisers briefly showcasing the 2012 Games.
The countdown to 2012 has started, and organisers will know they have a great deal to live up to with China hosting one of the best organised Games in history and staging some of the most memorable opening and closing ceremonies ever seen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/7578133.stm

New Yorkers expect for Beijing Olympic closing ceremony broadccast

NEW YORK, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- TV viewers in the United States will have to wait for 12 hours to see the extravaganza of the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympiad on Sunday night local time, but expectations are running high.

On New York's Times Square, police officer Jasmine Murry expects big crowds before the large screen of National Broadcasting Company (NBC), which owns the exclusive broadcast rights to the Beijing Olympics.

"This is Times Square, the 'crossroads of the world,'" Murry said. "Everyone, every country stands right here, looking at the big TV."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/25/content_9701926.htm

Homosexuality in the Media

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:20:00 +0000

In respect to homosexuality in the media, in the Western World it can be reasonably stated that the media promotes the homosexual agenda. For example, the Traditional Values Coalition states the following regarding the reporting of homosexuality and the United States media: “ The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association has hundreds of members and is heavily funded by Hearst newspapers, Knight-Ridder, CBS News, CNN, Gannett, NBC, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, and more. Major newspapers throughout the U.S. have homosexual activists on their staffs who filter what you read about homosexuality.[1] ”

In regards to how much influence the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association has with respect to homosexuality in the media, the organization Accuracy in Media reported the following from the group's 1999 annual convention: "In his keynote speech, journalist Charles Kaiser boasted that "the editor and the publisher of every major news organization in America, except for Peter Jennings, has by now attended [one of our events].""[2]

Joseph Farah, who founded WorldNetDaily, wrote an article on the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NGJA) in which he stated that he had covered the group for some time.[3] However, it wasn't until their 10th anniversary that the shed the guise of portraying themselves as an objective professional organization that promotes higher journalistic standards in regards to the issue of homosexuality and showed themselves as promoters of a homosexual activist agenda that attempts to gain special rights.[4]

In September of 2000, Mr. Farah stated the following regarding the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association: “ It is...a group that has bent so far toward changing the newsroom culture that the big debate in San Francisco was whether journalists should even bother getting other points of view on homosexuals' issues and stories.

Did you catch that? What was on the table at the NLGJA conference was the question of whether those with differing viewpoints on homosexuality and the special "rights" activists are asserting for them based on their behavior should even have a say in news stories.

CBS correspondent and NLJGA member Jeffrey Kofman made his thinking clear: "The argument (is): Why do we constantly see in coverage of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues the homophobes and the fag-haters quoted in stories when, of course, we don't do that with Jews, blacks, et cetera?"

Paula Madison, vice president of diversity at NBC and news director for the NBC's New York City affiliate WNBC, added: "I agree with him. I don't see why we would seek out ... the absurd, inane point of view just to get another point of view."

Kofman rejoined: "All of us have seen and continue to see a lot of coverage that includes perspectives on gay issues that include people who just simply are intolerant and perhaps not qualified as well."

This was political correctness gone wild. [5] ”

Joseph Farah makes an excellent point above regarding journalist objectivity and homosexual activist journalist given the American Media's unwillingness to cover some of the unpleasant facts about homosexuality. For example, John Cloud is a homosexual activist who writes for Time magazine and wrote the October 10, 1995 cover story for Time Magazine which was entitled “The Battle Over Gay Teens.”[6] John Cloud’s article rendered a positive portrayal homosexual teens who are establishing networks of Gay Straight Alliance clubs on campuses all over the United States.[7] According to the Traditional Values Coalition, most readers of Time magazine were unaware that John Cloud is a homosexual who had previously written for the liberal Washington City Paper in Washington, DC. about his visit to a "homosexual sex orgy club in Washington, DC."[8]

Accuracy in Media stated the following regarding a convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association: “ Media organizations which underwrote the convention included NBC News, Times Inc., Turner Broadcasting, Knight-Ridder, the Washington Post and Fox News Network. That’s right - Fox News. This is supposed to be a conservative network. ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, and USA Today all sent recruiters to the event, to hire open gays as journalists. Fitzpatrick comments, "By treating the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association as a legitimate counterpart to black and Hispanic journalists’ associations, these media organizations showed that they agree with the notion that homosexuals, a group defined by behavior rather than immutable characteristics, constitute a bona fide minority."

Homosexuality in the Media and the Influence of the New York Times
Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

John Stossel is an author, consumer reporter, and a co-anchor for the ABC News show 20/20. Cybercast News Service states the following regarding regarding the influence of the New York Times and Washington Post on other media: “ While the newspapers reach only a fraction of people compared to the television networks, he said radio and television producers rely heavily on their contents.

"The reason the Times, and to a lesser extent the Post, are so important, and they are, is because the TV and radio - all of the media - copy it sycophantically," he [John Stossel] said. "That's how bias at the Times becomes bias in other media."[10] ”

In regards to the issue of homosexuality and the New York Times, the New York Times clearly promotes the homosexual agenda.[11][12][13] Accuracy in Media quotes a report by Peter LaBarbera stating that Richard Berke, the national political correspondent for the New York Times, made an appearance on behalf of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and revealed that three-quarters of the people who now decide what goes on the front page of the New York Times are "not so closeted homosexuals."[14]
[edit]
Coverage of the Murders of Jesse Dirkhising and Matthew Shephard

Accuracy in Media states the following regarding liberal media bias in regards to the issue of homosexuality in the media: “ A year ago we had raised the issue of Jesse Dirkhising, the 13 year-old boy who was raped and murdered by two homosexuals in Arkansas in September 1999. The media's general failure to cover the murder stands in sharp contrast to the massive coverage of the death of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student in Wyoming. The Times [New York Times] hadn't published a word on the Dirkhising case.[15] ”

In respect to the issue of homosexuality, the case of Matthew Shepard was likely not a hate crime according to one of the leading police investigators for the murder.[16]

NewsMax reported the following regarding the cases of Dirkhising and Shephard: “ McGowan did a Nexus search and learned that the Shepard case generated a massive 3,007 stories. "And when the case finally went to trial ... it was all over the broadcast news, received front-page coverage in all major newspapers, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine. (In all, the New York Times ran 195 stories about the case.)

"In the month after the Dirkhising murder, however, Nexus recorded only 46 stories...

He sums up by quoting the surprisingly candid Andrew Sullivan - an openly gay columnist for the liberal New Republic.

Wrote Sullivan: "The Shepard case was hyped for political reasons: to build support for inclusion of homosexuals in a federal hate crimes law. The Dirkhising case was ignored for political reasons: squeamishness about reporting a story that could feed anti-gay prejudice and the lack of any pending legislation to hang a story on ... Some deaths - if they affect a politically protected class - are worth more than others. Other deaths, those that do not fit a politically correct profile, are left to oblivion."[17] ”

Fox News Channel and the Issue of Homosexuality

As noted earlier, Accuracy in Media stated the following regarding the Fox News Channel: “ Media organizations which underwrote the convention included NBC News, Times Inc., Turner Broadcasting, Knight-Ridder, the Washington Post and Fox News Network. That’s right - Fox News. This is supposed to be a conservative network.[18] ”

The American Family Association reported the following in regards to Bill O'Reilly who host the O"Reilly Report which is a popular program on the Fox News Channel: “ On February 11, 2004, Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, featured Kevin Jennings, the executive director of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network.) Jennings, former teacher turned homosexual activist, along with a lesbian counterpart, discussed GLSEN's new pro-homosexual curriculum on marriage being marketed to children and youth in public schools all across America under the guise of "tolerance."...

O'Reilly, watched heavily by conservatives and Christians alike, shocked much of his constituency on September 3, 2002 when he publicly announced his support of homosexual special rights in the nation's largest “gay” publication, The Advocate. His controversial interview is one he probably wishes would just go away. His sympathetic, emotionally based views on “gay” adoption and his mixed-message stance on “gay” marriage have caused great dissent among his loyalists - and no doubt cost him viewers.[19] ”

WorldNetDaily stated the following regarding O'Reilly and his exchange with the ex-homosexual and evangelical minister Stephen Bennett: “ Fox News is threatening to sue a prominent evangelical minister in the ex-homosexual movement who engaged in a volatile exchange over biblical morality on the top-rated television program "The O'Reilly Factor" in September.

Stephen Bennett, who says he left his homosexual lifestyle nearly 11 years ago, has distributed a 60-minute audio tape program called the "The O'Reilly Shocker," in which he responds to host Bill O'Reilly's characterization of people who take the Bible literally as "religious fanatics."...

Bennett said he has received hundreds of e-mails from viewers of the segment who said they were outraged at O'Reilly's "anger and verbal abuse." [20] ”

In response to the threatened lawsuit of the Fox News Channel the Agape Press reported the following: “ But Mike DePrimo, senior litigation counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, which represents Bennett, says Bennett has a right to distribute a recording of the program -- and that his use of the tape is legal under copyright law's allowance of fair use and comment.

"The law provides that even copyrighted material may be used, provided it's used not for commercial gain but for comment," DePrimo says. "Stephen Bennett used the material from the O'Reilly show simply to rebut the arguments O'Reilly put forward."

The attorney implies there may be another reason the popular O'Reilly wants distribution of the tape stopped -- and it has to do with image. "O'Reilly promotes himself as a conservative," DePrimo explains. "In fact, Bennett's tape shows that O'Reilly is simply another media elite who's advancing the homosexual agenda -- and he doesn't want to be exposed for what he is."[21] ”

Washington Times Reports American Backlash Against Media Coverage of Homosexuality

The Media Research Center reported the following regarding a 2003 news story by the Washington Times: “ Washington Times - "Homosexuality seen as accepted by media," by Julia Duin

July 29, 2003

...Last night, "Boy Meets Boy," a dating game for homosexual men where some straight men are thrown into the mix, aired on NBC's Bravo cable channel. This came on the heels of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," another new Bravo show that last week got bumped up to prime time Thursday, the same night that NBC airs its homosexual-themed sitcom "Will & Grace."... But there has been a backlash against homosexuality, according to a poll released yesterday by USA Today....opposition to same-sex "marriages" had risen to 57 percent, the most opposition since the question was first posed in 2000. "People feel there is a wave coming, so there's a resistance," said Tim Graham, an analyst with the Media Research Center. "People ask if anyone is going to fight. This White House won't. The Bush administration knows what the media hot buttons are."[22] ”

[edit]
Homosexuality in the Media and Viewers Opinions

In June of 2007, Human Events reported the following: “ A new special report by the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) indicates that watching too much television could be hazardous to your moral health.

The report, The Media Assault on American Values, reveals that media messages appear to be undermining the pillars of America’s cultural edifice: strength of character, sexual morality and respect for God. The report is based on findings of a major scientific survey commissioned by CMI, a division of the Media Research Center.

The National Cultural Values Survey reveals a striking correlation between greater exposure to television and permissive moral views. Heavy television viewers (four hours or more per evening) are less committed to character virtues like honesty and charity, and more permissive about sex, abortion and homosexuality. Light television viewers (one hour or less per evening) are more likely to attend religious services and live their lives by God’s principles....

Ten Americans believe Hollywood is harming the nation’s moral condition for every one who thinks Hollywood is helping.[23] ”

Prevalence of Homosexuality in American Television Media

In October of 2007 the pro-homosexuality Journal of Homosexuality published a journal article about the prevalence of homosexual and bisexual content in television. Below is an excerpt from the journal article abstract: “ Two annual content analyses of programming from the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 television seasons...were conducted to assess the presence of behaviors and verbal messages related to the sexuality of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Sexual content associated with nonheterosexuals was found in about 15% of programs overall; however, rates of occurrence within episodes were low. Of 14 genres, only movies and variety/comedy shows had substantial percentages of programs that contained nonheterosexual content. Programs on commercial broadcast networks were less likely to have nonheterosexual content than those on cable networks, especially those on premium cable movie networks.[24] ”

In August of 2007, the Baptist Press reported the following regarding homosexuality in the media: “ As previously reported in Baptist Press, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) released Aug. 6 its first-ever "Network Responsibility Index" which examined the inclusion of "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender" themes or characters on TV.

The index found that 15 percent of all of ABC's primetime programming hours during a 12-month span contained either homosexual characters or the discussion of homosexuality. The CW was second at 12 percent, followed by CBS (9 percent), NBC (7 percent) and Fox (6 percent). For their content ABC was rated "good," the CW, CBS and NBC "fair" and Fox "poor."...

Television's positive portrayal has certainly contributed to the rise in the acceptance of homosexuality as natural, normal and healthy.[25] ”

However, there may have been a backlash or public pressure against the promotion of homosexuality vis a vis network television and the college newspaper The Loquitur reported the following in October of 2007: “ Network television has begun to cancel homosexual characters from their sitcoms while cable television has cast more this year. The organization, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, GLAAD, is in upset over the decrease of homosexual characters on network television.[26] ”

Homosexuality in the Media and American History

In 2002, NewsMax reported the following regarding homosexuality and the media in regards to how the United States press used to cover the homosexuality issue: “ Four decades ago, media coverage of homosexuality was universally hostile. McGowan recalls Time magazine's description of homosexuality as a "pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life" deserving "no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste, and above all no pretence that it is anything but a pernicious sickness."

Straight News quoted Mike Wallace as calling the average homosexual "promiscuous" and "not interested in or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual.[27] ”

The pro-homosexuality Journal of Homosexuality also stated the following regarding the homosexuality and television media: "Before 1970, almost no gay characters could be found on television, and their relative absence from the screen continued until the 1990s..."[28]

http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_in_the_Media

BRAINWASHING THE CHILDREN: A GLOBAL EFFORT

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 10:46:00 +0000

As the battle for total control over our children escalates, the bastions of social services in almost every nation are working overtime to steal them and turn them into state property. This is a global effort, not just an assault on American children, and no effort is too great to those who want to brainwash the children and make them citizens of the new global order.

The “it takes a village” crowd is thrilled whenever inroads are made by the liberals into parental rights. They’d prefer we didn’t have any, but their so-called platform is one grounded in hypocrisy. Think about some of the more recent cases in which mothers were charged with murdering their own children. Many of the victims were infants and toddlers who were beaten to death. Those mothers received either time served or slaps on their wrists, especially on the Left Coast. The press remains silent regarding those crimes while liberals judges state they don’t want the mothers lives destroyed because of emotional acts against their children. But if the mother is allegedly a Christian, she’s pilloried by the press.

We know that liberals have a “disposability” mindset when it comes to children, especially the unborn, and we know that liberalism (or something akin to satanism) is behind the destruction of the family. But their hatred of God and Christianity is totally perverse, so they rejoice when Christian parents are under scrutiny, even for doing nothing wrong. Simple behaviors that are within the law become “high crimes and misdemeanors” to the globalists who are stripping the parents of THEIR right to pass their Christian and/or conservative values on to their children. That’s what the upcoming mental health testing for all school children is about—to see who needs to be reprogrammed in the government schools and to punish the parents for instilling those values in their children in the first place.

In his article, “Education Reform for the New World Order,” Albert Dager noted the story of David, a 12-year-old American boy. It seemed David didn’t like the discipline meted out by his Christian parents, and didn’t want to go to church or do household chores. He also didn’t like their rule about not listening to rock music or not wearing T-shirts that sported satanic symbols. Finally, David thought he was old enough to date.

David’s rebellion was so intense, he did exactly what the New World Order folks (and Hillary “divorce your parents” Clinton) hope all of our children will do. He went to his school counselor who contacted Child Protection Services and asked the agency to protect David from his parents.

The outcome: David was put in foster care with a 30-year-old man while his parents had to be counseled by “a state-approved psychologist” regarding their “anger and intolerance.” As Dager wrote, “If they pass the test and allow David to have his way, David will be allowed home.”

David’s parents had their right to raise their child in a Christian home with Christian values summarily stripped from them by those who oppose Christianity. Compounding that was the court’s provision that David was given authority over his parents. He was no longer their child by traditional definitions; he was their master and a freeloader in their home who could do as he pleased.

Financial constraints forced David’s parents to rely on a court-appointed attorney to present their side before a judge. This hearkens to Kafka’s The Trial, in which a young man is subpoenaed by an irregular court, forced to represent himself against charges which are never specified, and finally made to pay the ultimate price.

It seems to me that it’s a direct conflict of interest to have government appointed lawyers represent private citizens against that self-same government. One could argue that in any legal matter between the state and a private citizen in which “free legal counsel” is used there is a conflict of interest. Just a slight noteworthy digression . . .

The young man I’m tutoring to pass the GED told me about the graduation ceremony he attended last Saturday at what has become another of my city’s black high schools. Of the 180 graduates, only 120 earned diplomas. The other 60 got certificates of attendance, which means they did not meet the necessary academic standards to graduate. He also lost count of the number of graduates who were quite obviously pregnant. The parents of those graduating were present celebrating their “achievements,” but the fathers of those unborn children weren’t around. This is the result—noted over and over again due to mounting evidence—of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Another generation of black children will grow up without fathers at the taxpayers’ expense.

Well have no fear about academic standards and out-of-wedlock pregnancies for the young folks. And don’t worry about the rewards for high achievement. The new value system no longer values achievement. Dager stated that the global education system that’s being foisted on all nations—yes, even the United States—isn’t focused on students learning facts, and achieving academically and intellectually. Instead it’s about “creating new values.” And considering the definition of the word “values,” the creation of a global education system is terrifying, especially one that’s in strong opposition to Christianity.

The word “values” means principles, standards, morals, ethics, and ideals. Obviously the globalists want to undo or remove Christian principles, standards, morals, ethics and ideals and substitute their own godless (therefore valueless to us) system. There’s nothing we can hold in high esteem or treasure that comes from the ungodly, or those who want to rewrite history and/or create gods in their minds . . . or who view themselves as gods.

First they took prayer out of the schools and “we the people” let them do it. Now they want to take God out of our children’s hearts and minds forever. And “we the people” may not be able to stop them. According to Dager, their methodologies include group discussions and role-playing, both of which are geared to reveal the dissenters. And those who do dissent or stand for godly principles, values, and morals will be labeled “stupid” and will be made to “feel left out.”

Now that’s the height of hypocrisy not to mention a total abuse of the government schools. Wasn’t it the liberals who said that children’s feelings get terribly hurt when they’re bullied or left out? Haven’t they punished children for being “homophobic” or bullying others? Perhaps that doesn’t apply to children from Christian or conservative homes because the plan is to torment the children so they and their parents come into compliance with the new system. The list of “values” changes is long and dangerous, as Dager points out, because it’s so universal:

1. The rejection of Christianity in favor of multiculturalism, and a patchwork religious system that’s supposed to please everyone (especially the coming antichrist).
2. It’s an abomination to believe that God is the Creator of the universe (Genesis is a lie or fairy tale made up by man).
3. Jesus isn’t the only Savior nor is He the Lord, God.
4. There’s no eternal judgment to come as the Bible indicates.
5. Participation in the occult, New Ageism, and even witchcraft are most acceptable.
6. Moral values that come from the Bible have been replaced with “situational ethics.” Such teaching is based on the pure hedonism—“If it feels right, do it,” but don’t get AIDS, don’t get pregnant, and don’t get addicted to drugs.
7. Sexuality among young people is encouraged and those who refuse to participate will be made to feel there’s “something wrong with them.” Children are being taught that they have the same sex drive as animals.
8. National sovereignty is a thing of the past and must be destroyed. National achievements are condemned and only the global viewpoint will be promoted. This will deprive children of all “cultural and historical legitimacy,” which proved disastrous in the UK and is now being done on a large scale by globalists/communists in the US.
9. Anti-social behavior will not be punished which will “create a breakdown in the social order.”
10. New laws will be passed that will undermine and eventually destroy the family unit as it’s been known for decades.

Many of the items on the list are also discussed in Tim LaHaye’s book Mind Siege. LaHaye hit the nail on the head when he wrote the scenario on what’s happening in government schools today . . . and in local governments. With the flip of a “mind control” switch, the rulers of “this present darkness” have accomplished much already and plan to accomplish much more. All they have to do is separate children from their nation, their Christian beliefs and morals, and their families so they will seek comfort from the “gods of the New Age, which will in fact bring in the coming antichrist system.” Young people will be appropriately propagandized with New World Order “values” and “principles” so they can be good slaves to the new global government. Meanwhile they keep Americans “drugged” with the likes of American Idol so they won’t pay attention or fight back.

Robert Muller (www.robertmuller.org), former assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and head of the World Constitution Parliament Association, is totally committed to the New World Order and has stated so using the best propaganda money can buy: “We need a world education. Global education, namely the education of the children into our global home and into the human family... Global education must prepare our children for the coming of an inter-dependent, safe, prosperous, friendly, loving, happy planetary age as has been heralded by all the great prophets.”

Well, I’ve read what God’s prophets had to say about this coming New World Order and it isn’t going to be as Muller described. As Dager said, it will be the direct opposite because the breakdown of social values will create moral, spiritual, and political chaos. The breaking down of those values will open the door for political tyranny and those who dissent will be executed. Check out Chapter 13 of Revelation in the Bible. The only ones who will have any “social rights” will be those who swear allegiance to the new system and its ruler, the antichrist.

The children are under severe attack. They’ve been surrounded by their enemies in the government schools, their social settings, even in some of their churches and synagogues. They have come under false shepherds who are leading them into some of the worst sin seen on earth since “the days of Noah.” We are living in a time when the players FOR God and the pawns for evil are becoming more and more apparent, but only the former are being punished or castigated before the public.

While the liberals take their phony anti-war and pro-immigration protests to the streets so they can appear to be the radical counterculture, reality screams the truth. They are the mindless followers of globalism—the puppets and the brainwashed who are being swept into the slavery of the New World Order.

The real counterculture, the real “radicals” are those who deny allegiance to the global order and stand firm in their faith in Jesus, even if the costs are high. Evil may have seven years of tyranny under the New World Order, but those who love God and have repented through His uniquely begotten Son, Jesus, will truly partake of “peace and goodwill on earth” when He returns in all His glory.

I think Dager put it quite well when he quoted God’s words from Jeremiah 2:13: “My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Part 5 of this piece is in progress and will focus on witchcraft and the occult among the youth in America. Keep reading . . . and don’t stop praying . . .

http://www.newswithviews.com/Walker/jill24.htm

Media Violence Debates

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:56:00 +0000

The issue of media violence just doesn't go away. The debate raged when the Reagan administration deregulated children's television in the United States, and was revisited after the Montreal massacre on December 6, 1989. And the rash of high school shootings in North America and Europe at the end of the century has fuelled the debate anew.

Many pundits argue that media violence is at least partly to blame for the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, Taber, Alberta and Erfurt, Germany. Ex-army psychologist Dave Grossman, a leading American activist, points the finger squarely at movies and video games. He argues that Hollywood films have desensitized kids to the consequences of violence, and video games have taught them how to handle a gun. But others, like psychiatrist Serge Tisseron, maintain, "just because a film has a murder scene doesn't mean people are going to commit the act... That overstates the power of the image and under-estimates the role of parents."

It is important to recognize that the discussion is not a purely scientific one. Social scientists have been unable to establish clearly that media violence causes real-life aggression. As early as 1985, Anthony Smith noted that the demand for "evidence" was driven more by the intensity of the debate than the desire to find definitive answers: "Social science has gotten itself into something of a scrape in the matter of television, especially in the area of violence; none of the various sides of the argument about violence will permit social science to depart the field." (For a review of the scientific literature, see Research on the Effects of Media Violence in the menu below.)

Media Violence as a Public Health Issue

On the other hand, many social scientists have concluded that there is a weak correlation between watching media violence and real life aggression—enough to convince organizations like the Canadian Pediatric Society and the American Medical Association that media violence is a public health issue. After all, governments don't wait for scientific certainty before they act to protect the public from smoking or drinking; all that's required is proof of a risk. If there is evidence that an activity or substance will increase the probability of negative effects, then the state is justified in intervening.

Media Violence as Artistic Expression

However, others maintain that the crusade against media violence is a form of censorship that, if successful, would seriously hamper artistic expression. Researchers R. Hodge and D. Tripp, for example, argue that, "Media violence is qualitatively different from real violence: it is a natural signifier of conflict and difference, and without representations of conflict, art of the past and present would be seriously impoverished."

Many commentators, from artists to film makers to historians, agree. Comic-book creator Gerard Jones contends that violent video games, movies, music and comic books enable people to pull themselves out of emotional traps, "integrating the scariest, most fervently denied fragments of their psyches into fuller sense of selfhood through fantasies of superhuman combat and destruction." Pullitzer-Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes says that video game violence enables young people to safely challenge their feelings of powerlessness.

Psychologist Melanie Moore concludes:

"Fear, greed, power-hunger, rage: these are aspects of our selves that we try not to experience in our lives but often want, even need, to experience vicariously through stories of others. Children need violent entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they've been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood."

Media Violence as Free Speech

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression lists a number of reasons to protect media violence as a form of free expression:
censorship won't solve the root causes of violence in society

deciding what is "acceptable" content is necessarily a subjective exercise

many of the plays, books and films banned in the past are considered classics today

it's up to individuals and not governments to decide what's appropriate for themselves and their children

The Québec Writers Union (l'Union des écrivaines et écrivains québecois, or l'Uneq) makes the same argument in its publication Liberté d'expression: guide d'utilisation. For l'Uneq, legislation restricting the production or importing of literature is part of a larger structure favouring censorship.

And, as the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) noted in its 1999 study of entertainment violence, media violence can be compelling social commentary. According to CMPA, the most violent film in 1999 was Saving Private Ryan, a fictionalized account of the D-Day invasion of Normandy which has been critically acclaimed for its realistic portrayal of the horrors of war.

Many media critics, like George Gerbner and Joanne Cantor, agree that censorship is not the answer. However, they question whose rights are protected when governments give, in Gerbner's words, a "virtual commercial monopoly over the public's airwaves," in effect delivering our "cultural environment to a marketing operation."

As journalist Scott Stossel notes, parents used to tell children scary stories face-to-face, so they could moderate the content and teach life lessons: "Children today, in contrast, grow up in a cultural environment that is designed to the specifications of a marketing strategy."

Shari Graydon, past president of Canada's Media Watch, and Québec activist René Caron remind us that the air waves are a public utility, and those who control their access and distribution must do so in ways that represent the best interests of all Canadians. Caron states, "violence has been used by the industry to capture the attention of boys, to captivate them and manipulate them." Although this strategy may be profitable, "from a social viewpoint, from a moral viewpoint, this approach has had abominable repercussions."

Media Violence and The Uncivil Society

The repercussions aren't limited to a potential increase in aggressive behaviour. Many commentators worry that media violence has become embedded in the cultural environment; that, in some sense, it's part of the "psychic air" that children and young people constantly breathe. That environment of violence, profanity, crudeness, and meanness may erode civility in society by demeaning and displacing positive social values.

Todd Gitlin goes further. He argues that media violence is a red herring that allows politicians to divert attention away from very real social problems. He writes, "There is little political will for a war on poverty, guns, or family breakdown ... we are offered instead a crusade against media violence. This is largely a feel-good exercise, a moral panic substituting for practicality... It appeals to an American propensity that sociologist Philip Slater called the Toilet Assumption: once the appearance of a social problem is swept out of sight, so is the problem. And the crusade costs nothing."

Rather than focusing on violent content, Gitlin argues we should be condemning "trash on the grounds that it is stupid, wasteful, morally bankrupt: that it coarsens taste, that it shrivels the capacity to feel and know the whole of human experience."

Media Violence and the Inequitable Society

Gerbner warns that the search for a link between media violence and real life aggression is in itself a symptom of the problem itself. For Gerbner, media violence demonstrates power: "It shows one's place in the 'pecking order' that runs society."

For example, Gerbner's decades-long study of television violence indicates that villains are typically portrayed as poor, young, male members of visible minorities, and victims are overwhelmingly female. He argues that by making the world look like a dangerous place, especially for white people, the majority will be more willing to give the authorities greater power to enforce the status quo.

This is an argument that Michael Moore used in the award-winning movie, Bowling for Columbine. Journalist Thierry Jobin writes, "[Moore] denounces the way in which the government and the media foster a feeling of insecurity, pushing Americans to barricade themselves in their homes, a loaded 44 Magnum under their pillows." Gerbner worries that this sense of insecurity and powerlessness will be used to justify a weakening of democratic values.

Media Violence as Consumer Choice

Opponents of regulation argue that it's up to the viewer to decide what to watch. If you don't like television violence, they say, then turn off the TV.

However, research indicates that the popularity of a TV show depends less on content and more on scheduling. As Gerbner points out, "... violence as such is not highly rated. That means it coasts on viewer inertia, not selection. Unlike other media use, viewing is a ritual; people watch by the clock and not by the program."

Joanne Cantor criticizes the media industry for saying it's up to parents, not the industry, to decide what their children watch: "They make harmful products, which come into our homes automatically through television, they market them to children too young to use them safely, and they try to keep parents in the dark about their effects." Cantor argues parents need tools to help them decide what is healthy and unhealthy for their kids.

One such tool is the V-chip, which enables parents to program their televisions with pre-set industry ratings to screen out certain shows. Keith Spicer, former chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, calls the V-chip a "sexy, telegenic little gizmo that fulfills the fantasy of a magic wand."

The industry has been quick to endorse V-chip technology but critics argue that its real function is to protect the industry from parents, not the other way around. Gerbner states, "It's like major polluters saying, 'We shall continue business as usual, but don't worry, we'll also sell you gas masks to 'protect your children' and have a 'free choice!' ... Programming needs to be diversified, not just 'rated.' A better government regulation is antitrust, which could create a level playing field, admitting new entries and a greater diversity of ownership, employment, and representation. That would reduce violence to its legitimate role and frequency."

Todd Gitlin agrees with Gerbner that the real issue is broadcaster irresponsibility—though he does endorse the V-chip because, "parents deserve all the technology they can get."

Media Violence and Active Audiences

Researchers like David Buckingham in the U.K. and Henry Jenkins in the U.S. add another dimension to the debate. They argue that rather than focusing on what media do to people, we should focus on what people do with media.

As Jenkins writes, media images "are not simple chemical agents like carcinogens that produce predictable results upon those who consume them. They are complex bundles of often contradictory meanings that can yield an enormous range of different responses from the people who consume them."

From this perspective, people don't just passively absorb messages transmitted through the media; they choose which media to consume and are actively involved in determining what the meaning of the messages will be. And that process doesn't occur in a social vacuum. Personal experiences affect what we watch and how we make sense of it. Our class position, our religious upbringing, our level of education, our family setting, and our peer groups all have a role to play in how we understand violent content.

Jenkins draws a different lesson from the shooting in Littleton: "Media images may have given [the Columbine shooters] symbols to express their rage and frustration, but the media did not create the rage or generate their alienation. What sparked the violence was not something they saw on the internet or on television, not some song lyric or some sequence from a movie, but things that really happened to them... If we want to do something about the problem, we are better off focusing our attention on negative social experiences and not the symbols we use to talk about those experiences."

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/violence_debates.cfm

Violence in Media Entertainment - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:50:00 +0000

More Graphic, More Sexual, More Sadistic

Other research indicates that media violence has not just increased in quantity; it has also become much more graphic, much more sexual, and much more sadistic.

Explicit pictures of slow-motion bullets exploding from people's chests, and dead bodies surrounded by pools of blood, are now commonplace fare. Millions of viewers worldwide, many of them children, watch female World Wrestling Entertainment wrestlers try to tear out each other's hair and rip off each other's clothing. And one of the top-selling video games in the world, Grand Theft Auto, is programmed so players can beat prostitutes to death with baseball bats after having sex with them.

The Globalization of Media
Concerns about media violence have grown as television and movies have acquired a global audience. When UNESCO surveyed children in 23 countries around the world in 1998, it discovered that 91 per cent of children had a television in their home -- and not just in the U.S., Canada and Europe, but also in the Arab states, Latin America, Asia and Africa. More than half (51 per cent) of boys living in war zones and high-crime areas chose action heroes as role models, ahead of any other images; and a remarkable 88 per cent of the children surveyed could identify the Arnold Schwarzenegger character from the film Terminator. UNESCO reported that the Terminator "seems to represent the characteristics that children think are necessary to cope with difficult situations."

Violence Without Consequences or Moral Judgment

The notion of violence as a means of problem solving is reinforced by entertainment in which both villains and heroes resort to violence on a continual basis. The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), which has studied violence in television, movies and music videos for a decade, reports that nearly half of all violence is committed by the "good guys." Less than 10 per cent of the TV shows, movies and music videos that were analyzed contextualized the violence or explored its human consequences. The violence was simply presented as justifiable, natural and inevitable -- the most obvious way to solve the problem.

PG: Parental Guidance?

Busy parents who want to protect their children from media violence have a difficult task before them. The CMPA found that violence appears on all major television networks and cable stations, making it impossible for channel surfers to avoid it.

Nightly news coverage has become another concern. In spite of falling crime rates across North America, disturbing images of violent crime continue to dominate news broadcasting. As news shows compete with other media for audiences, many news producers have come to rely on the maxim: "If it bleeds, it leads." Violence and death, they say, keep the viewer numbers up. Good news doesn't.

As well, movie ratings are becoming less and less trustworthy in terms of giving parents real guidance on shows with unsuitable content. PG-13 movies tend to make more money than R-rated films, and as a result, the industry is experiencing a "ratings creep": shows that the Motion Picture Association of America would once have rated R are now being rated as PG-13, in order to increase box-office profits and rental sales.

In movie theatres, there is some control over who watches what. But at home, there's little to stop children from watching a restricted movie on one of the many emerging specialty channels. Kids may also have access to adult video games at the local video store. In December 2001, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported that retailers allowed 78 per cent of unaccompanied minors, ages 13 to 16, to purchase video games rated "mature."

To make supervision even more problematic, American children often have their own entertainment equipment. According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 57 per cent of kids aged 8 to 16 have TVs in their bedrooms, and 39 per cent have gaming equipment.

A Youth Subculture of Violence

While many parents are concerned about the graphic violence and put-down humour in many kids' shows, there's a growing subculture of violence that parental radar often misses.

Music and Music Videos

Music and music videos are pushing into new and increasingly violent territory. When singer Jordan Knight, formerly of the popular New Kids on the Block group, released a solo album in 1999, Canadian activists called for a boycott of the album because it included a song advocating date rape.

And when the controv

And when the controversial rap artist Eminem came to Toronto in 2000, politicians and activists unsuccessfully called for the government to bar him from the country, on the grounds that his violent lyrics promoted hatred against women. For instance, his song Kim graphically depicts him murdering his wife; and Kill You describes how he plans to rape and murder his mother.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) his promotion of violence, Eminem continues to be a commercial success. His Marshall Mathers release sold 679,567 copies in Canada in 2000, and was the year's best-selling album. And The Eminem Show topped Canadian charts for months in 2002, selling, at one point, approximately 18,000 copies a week.

Eminem's success is not exceptional. Extremely violent lyrics have moved into the mainstream of the music industry. The Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, lists Eminem, Dr Dre and Limp Bizkit all of whom have been criticized for their violent and misogynist lyrics among its top-grossing artists. And Madonna's 2002 music video What It Feels Like For a Girl contained such graphic violence that even MTV refused to air it more than once.

Video Games

Violence in general, and sexual violence in particular, is also a staple of the video game industry. The current trend is for players to be the bad guys, acting out criminal fantasies and earning points for attacking and killing innocent bystanders. Although these games are rated M, for mature audiences, it's common knowledge that they are popular among pre-teens and teenaged boys.

For example, players in Grand Theft Auto 3 (the best-selling game ever for PlayStation 2) earn points by carjacking, and stealing drugs from street people and pushers. In Carmageddon, players are rewarded for mowing down pedestrians -- sounds of cracking bones add to the realistic effect. The first-person shooter in Duke Nukem hones his skills by using pornographic posters of women for target practice, and earns bonus points for shooting naked and bound prostitutes and strippers who beg, "Kill me." In the game Postal, players act out the part of the Postal Dude, who earns points by randomly shooting everyone who appears -- including people walking out of church, and members of a high school band. Postal Dude is programmed to say, "Only my gun understands me."

The level of violence in the gaming habits of young people is disturbingly high. In MNet's 2001 study Young Canadians In A Wired World (which found that 32 per cent of kids 9 to 17 are playing video games "every day or almost every day"), 60 per cent cited action/combat as their favourite genre. Stephen Kline of Simon Fraser University reported similar findings in his 1998 study of over 600 B.C. teens. Twenty-five per cent of the teens he surveyed played between seven and 30 hours a week and when asked for their one favourite game, their choice was "overwhelmingly" in the action/adventure genre.

Web Sites

Virtual violence is also readily available on the World Wide Web. Children and young people can download violent lyrics (including lyrics that have been censored from retail versions of songs), and visit Web sites that feature violent images and video clips. Much of the violence is also sexual in nature.

For example, the site Who Would You Kill? allows players to select real-life stars of television shows, and then describe how they would kill them off in the series. The entries frequently include bizarre acts of degradation and sexual violence. Murder is also a staple of the Web site newgrounds.com, which features a number of Flash movies showing celebrities being degraded and killed. When MNet surveyed 5,682 Canadian young people in 2001, the newgrounds site ranked twelfth in popularity among 11- and 12-year-old boys.

Other popular sites such as gorezone.com and rotten.com feature real-life pictures of accident scenes, torture and mutilation. In 2000, rotten.com was investigated by the FBI for posting photographs depicting cannibalism.

Many kids view these sites as the online equivalent of harmless horror movies. But their pervasive combination of violence and sexual imagery is disturbing. Gorezone's front-page disclaimer describes the images on its site as "sexually oriented and of an erotic nature" and then warns viewers that they also contain scenes of death, mutilation and dismemberment. The disclaimer then normalizes this activity by stating, "my interest in scenes of death, horrifying photos and sexual matters, which is both healthy and normal, is generally shared by adults in my community."

Anecdotal evidence suggests that gore sites are well known to Canadian schoolchildren, although parents and teachers are often unaware of their existence. In MNet's 2001 survey, 70 per cent of high school boys said that they had visited such sites.

The presence of violence, degradation and cruelty in a range of media means that children are exposed to a continuum of violence, which ranges from the in-your-face attitude of shows like South Park to extreme depictions of misogyny and sadism. Young people generally take the lead when it comes to accessing new media but the MNet survey found that only 16 per cent of children say their parents know a great deal of what they do online. This is particularly problematic, given the results of a 1999 AOL survey which that found online activities are emerging as a central facet of family life; and that a majority of parents believe that being online is better for their children than watching television.

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/violence_entertainment.cfm

Violence in Media Entertainment

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:47:00 +0000

Between 2000 B.C. and 44 A.D., the ancient Egyptians entertained themselves with plays re-enacting the murder of their god Osiris -- and the spectacle, history tells us, led to a number of copycat killings. The ancient Romans were given to lethal spectator sports as well, and in 380 B.C. Saint Augustine lamented that his society was addicted to gladiator games and "drunk with the fascination of bloodshed."

Violence has always played a role in entertainment. But there's a growing consensus that, in recent years, something about media violence has changed.

For one thing, there's more of it. Laval University professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise studied six major Canadian television networks over a seven-year period, examining films, situation comedies, dramatic series, and children's programming (though not cartoons). The study found that between 1993 and 2001, incidents of physical violence increased by 378 per cent. TV shows in 2001 averaged 40 acts of violence per hour.

Francophone viewers experienced the greatest increase. Although physical violence on the three anglophone networks in the study increased by 183 per cent, on their francophone counterparts it increased by 540 per cent. One network, TQS, accounted for just under half (49 per cent) of all the physical violence on the networks studied.

Paquette and de Guise also identified a disturbing increase in psychological violence, especially in the last two years. The study found that incidents of psychological violence remained relatively stable from 1993 to 1999, but increased 325 per cent from 1999 to 2001. Such incidents now occur more frequently than physical violence on both francophone and anglophone networks.

Canadians are also heavily influenced by American programming. Paquette and de Guise found that over 80 per cent of the TV violence aired in Canada originates in the U.S. They speculate that francophone networks and stations may have a higher incidence of violence because they broadcast more movies, and this, in turn may be due to lower production budgets. Canadian-made violence is most likely to appear on private networks, which broadcast three times as many violent acts as public networks do. Overall, 87.9 per cent of all violent acts appear before 9 p.m., and 39 per cent air before 8 p.m. -- at a time when children are likely to be watching.

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/violence_entertainment.cfm

Research on the Effects of Media Violence

noreply@blogger.com (nootropic) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:39:00 +0000

Whether or not exposure to media violence causes increased levels of aggression and violence in young people is the perennial question of media effects research. Some experts, like University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann, argue that fifty years of evidence show "that exposure to media violence causes children to behave more aggressively and affects them as adults years later." Others, like Jonathan Freedman of the University of Toronto, maintain that "the scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people, or desensitizes them to it."

Many Studies, Many Conclusions

Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1994. She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three "grey areas" or constraints contained in the research itself.

First, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as George Gerbner of Temple University, define violence as the act (or threat) of injuring or killing someone, independent of the method used or the surrounding context. Accordingly, Gerber includes cartoon violence in his data-set. But others, such as University of Laval professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise, specifically exclude cartoon violence from their research because of its comical and unrealistic presentation.

Second, researchers disagree over the type of relationship the data supports. Some argue that exposure to media violence causes aggression. Others say that the two are associated, but that there is no causal connection. (That both, for instance, may be caused by some third factor.) And others say the data supports the conclusion that there is no relationship between the two at all.

Third, even those who agree that there is a connection between media violence and aggression disagree about how the one effects the other. Some say that the mechanism is a psychological one, rooted in the ways we learn. For example, Huesmann argues that children develop "cognitive scripts" that guide their own behaviour by imitating the actions of media heroes. As they watch violent shows, children learn to internalize scripts that use violence as an appropriate method of problem-solving.

Other researchers argue that it is the physiological effects of media violence that cause aggressive behaviour. Exposure to violent imagery is linked to increased heart rate, faster respiration and higher blood pressure. Some think that this simulated "fight-or-flight" response predisposes people to act aggressively in the real world.

Still others focus on the ways in which media violence primes or cues pre-existing aggressive thoughts and feelings. They argue that an individual’s desire to strike out is justified by media images in which both the hero and the villain use violence to seek revenge, often without consequences.

In her final report to the CRTC, Martinez concluded that most studies support "a positive, though weak, relation between exposure to television violence and aggressive behaviour." Although that relationship cannot be "confirmed systematically," she agrees with Dutch researcher Tom Van der Voot who argues that it would be illogical to conclude that "a phenomenon does not exist simply because it is found at times not to occur, or only to occur under certain circumstances."

What the Researchers Are Saying

The lack of consensus about the relationship between media violence and real-world aggression has not impeded ongoing research. Here’s a sampling of conclusions drawn to date, from the various research strands:
Research strand: Children who consume high levels of media violence are more likely to be aggressive in the real world

In 1956, researchers took to the laboratory to compare the behaviour of 24 children watching TV. Half watched a violent episode of the cartoon Woody Woodpecker, and the other 12 watched the non-violent cartoon The Little Red Hen. During play afterwards, the researchers observed that the children who watched the violent cartoon were much more likely to hit other children and break toys.

Six years later, in 1963, professors A. Badura, D. Ross and S.A. Ross studied the effect of exposure to real-world violence, television violence, and cartoon violence. They divided 100 preschool children into four groups. The first group watched a real person shout insults at an inflatable doll while hitting it with a mallet. The second group watched the incident on television. The third watched a cartoon version of the same scene, and the fourth watched nothing.

When all the children were later exposed to a frustrating situation, the first three groups responded with more aggression than the control group. The children who watched the incident on television were just as aggressive as those who had watched the real person use the mallet; and both were more aggressive than those who had only watched the cartoon.

Over the years, laboratory experiments such as these have consistently shown that exposure to violence is associated with increased heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration rate, and a greater willingness to administer electric shocks to inflict pain or punishment on others. However, this line of enquiry has been criticized because of its focus on short term results and the artificial nature of the viewing environment.

Other scientists have sought to establish a connection between media violence and aggression outside the laboratory. For example, a number of surveys indicate that children and young people who report a preference for violent entertainment also score higher on aggression indexes than those who watch less violent shows. L. Rowell Huesmann reviewed studies conducted in Australia, Finland, Poland, Israel, Netherlands and the United States. He reports, "the child most likely to be aggressive would be the one who (a) watches violent television programs most of the time, (b) believes that these shows portray life just as it is, [and] (c) identifies strongly with the aggressive characters in the shows."

A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2003 found that nearly half (47 per cent) of parents with children between the ages of 4 and 6 report that their children have imitated aggressive behaviours from TV. However, it is interesting to note that children are more likely to mimic positive behaviours — 87 per cent of kids do so.

Recent research is exploring the effect of new media on children’s behaviour. Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman of Iowa State University reviewed dozens of studies of video gamers. In 2001, they reported that children and young people who play violent video games, even for short periods, are more likely to behave aggressively in the real world; and that both aggressive and non-aggressive children are negatively affected by playing.

In 2003, Craig Anderson and Iowa State University colleague Nicholas Carnagey and Janie Eubanks of the Texas Department of Human Services reported that violent music lyrics increased aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings among 500 college students. They concluded, "There are now good theoretical and empirical reasons to expect effects of music lyrics on aggressive behavior to be similar to the well-studied effects of exposure to TV and movie violence and the more recent research efforts on violent video games."
Research Strand: Children who watch high levels of media violence are at increased risk of aggressive behaviour as adults

In 1960, University of Michigan Professor Leonard Eron studied 856 grade three students living in a semi-rural community in Columbia County, New York, and found that the children who watched violent television at home behaved more aggressively in school. Eron wanted to track the effect of this exposure over the years, so he revisited Columbia County in 1971, when the children who participated in the 1960 study were 19 years of age. He found that boys who watched violent TV when they were eight were more likely to get in trouble with the law as teenagers.

When Eron and Huesmann returned to Columbia County in 1982, the subjects were 30 years old. They reported that those participants who had watched more violent TV as eight-year-olds were more likely, as adults, to be convicted of serious crimes, to use violence to discipline their children, and to treat their spouses aggressively.

Professor Monroe Lefkowitz published similar findings in 1971. Lefkowitz interviewed a group of eight-year-olds and found that the boys who watched more violent TV were more likely to act aggressively in the real world. When he interviewed the same boys ten years later, he found that the more violence a boy watched at eight, the more aggressively he would act at age eighteen.

Columbia University professor Jeffrey Johnson has found that the effect is not limited to violent shows. Johnson tracked 707 families in upstate New York for 17 years, starting in 1975. In 2002, Johnson reported that children who watched one to three hours of television each day when they were 14 to 16 years old were 60 per cent more likely to be involved in assaults and fights as adults than those who watched less TV.

Kansas State University professor John Murray concludes, "The most plausible interpretation of this pattern of correlations is that early preference for violent television programming and other media is one factor in the production of aggressive and antisocial behavior when the young boy becomes a young man."

However, this line of research has attracted a great deal of controversy. Pullitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes has attacked Eron’s work, arguing that his conclusions are based on an insignificant amount of data. Rhodes claims that Eron had information about the amount of TV viewed in 1960 for only 3 of the 24 men who committed violent crimes as adults years later. Rhodes concludes that Eron’s work is "poorly conceived, scientifically inadequate, biased and sloppy if not actually fraudulent research."

Guy Cumberbatch, head of the Communications Research Group, a U.K. social policy think tank, has equally harsh words for Johnson’s study. Cumberbatch claims Johnson’s group of 88 under-one-hour TV watchers is "so small, it's aberrant." And, as journalist Ben Shouse points out, other critics say that Johnson’s study "can’t rule out the possibility that television is just a marker for some unmeasured environmental or psychological influence on both aggression and TV habits."
Research Strand: The introduction of television into a community leads to an increase in violent behaviour

Researchers have also pursued the link between media violence and real life aggression by examining communities before and after the introduction of television. In the mid 1970s, University of British Columbia professor Tannis McBeth Williams studied a remote village in British Columbia both before and after television was introduced. She found that two years after TV arrived, violent incidents had increased by 160 per cent.

Researchers Gary Granzberg and Jack Steinbring studied three Cree communities in northern Manitoba during the 1970s and early 1980s. They found that four years after television was introduced into one of the communities, the incidence of fist fights and black eyes among the children had increased significantly. Interestingly, several days after an episode of Happy Days aired, in which one character joined a gang called the Red Demons, children in the community created rival gangs, called the Red Demons and the Green Demons, and the conflict between the two seriously disrupted the local school.

University of Washington Professor Brandon Centerwall noted that the sharp increase in the murder rate in North America in 1955 occurred eight years after television sets began to enter North American homes. To test his hypothesis that the two were related, he examined the murder rate in South Africa where, prior to 1975, television was banned by the government. He found that twelve years after the ban was lifted, murder rates skyrocketed.

University of Toronto Professor Jonathan Freedman has criticized this line of research. He points out that Japanese television has some of the most violent imagery in the world, and yet Japan has a much lower murder rate than other countries, including Canada and the United States, which have comparatively less violence on TV.
Research Strand: Media violence stimulates fear in some children

A number of studies have reported that watching media violence frightens young children, and that the effects of this may be long lasting.

In 1998, Professors Singer, Slovak, Frierson and York surveyed 2,000 Ohio students in grades three through eight. They report that the incidences of psychological trauma (including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress) increased in proportion to the number of hours of television watched each day.

A 1999 survey of 500 Rhode Island parents led by Brown University professor Judith Owens revealed that the presence of a television in a child’s bedroom makes it more likely that the child will suffer from sleep disturbances. Nine per cent of all the parents surveyed reported that their children have nightmares because of a television show at least once a week.

Tom Van der Voort studied 314 children aged nine through twelve in 1986. He found that although children can easily distinguish cartoons, westerns and spy thrillers from reality, they often confuse realistic programmes with the real world. When they are unable to integrate the violence in these shows because they can’t follow the plot, they are much more likely to become anxious. This is particularly problematic because the children reported that they prefer realistic programmes, which they equate with fun and excitement. And, as Jacques de Guise reported in 2002, the younger the child, the less likely he or she will be able to identify violent content as violence.

In 1999, Professors Joanne Cantor and K. Harrison studied 138 university students, and found that memories of frightening media images continued to disturb a significant number of participants years later. Over 90 per cent reported they continued to experience fright effects from images they viewed as children, ranging from sleep disturbances to steadfast avoidance of certain situations.
Research Strand: Media violence desensitizes people to real violence

A number of studies in the 1970’s showed that people who are repeatedly exposed to media violence tend to be less disturbed when they witness real world violence, and have less sympathy for its victims. For example, Professors V.B. Cline, R.G. Croft, and S. Courrier studied young boys over a two-year period. In 1973, they reported that boys who watch more than 25 hours of television per week are significantly less likely to be aroused by real world violence than those boys who watch 4 hours or less per week.

When researchers Fred Molitor and Ken Hirsch revisited this line of investigation in 1994, their work confirmed that children are more likely to tolerate aggressive behaviour in the real world if they first watch TV shows or films that contain violent content.
Research Strand: People who watch a lot of media violence tend to believe that the world is more dangerous than it is in reality

George Gerbner has conducted the longest running study of television violence. His seminal research suggests that heavy TV viewers tend to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with the images on TV. As viewers’ perceptions of the world come to conform with the depictions they see on TV, they become more passive, more anxious, and more fearful. Gerbner calls this the "Mean World Syndrome."

Gerbner’s research found that those who watch greater amounts of television are more likely to:
overestimate their risk of being victimized by crime

believe their neighbourhoods are unsafe

believe "fear of crime is a very serious personal problem"

assume the crime rate is increasing, even when it is not

André Gosselin, Jacques de Guise and Guy Paquette decided to test Gerbner’s theory in the Canadian context in 1997. They surveyed 360 university students, and found that heavy television viewers are more likely to believe the world is a more dangerous place. However, they also found heavy viewers are not more likely to actually feel more fearful.
Research Strand: Family attitudes to violent content are more important than the images themselves

A number of studies suggest that media is only one of a number of variables that put children at risk of aggressive behaviour.

For example, a Norwegian study that included 20 at-risk teenaged boys found that the lack of parental rules regulating what the boys watched was a more significant predictor of aggressive behaviour than the amount of media violence they watched. It also indicated that exposure to real world violence, together with exposure to media violence, created an "overload" of violent events. Boys who experienced this overload were more likely to use violent media images to create and consolidate their identities as members of an anti-social and marginalized group.

On the other hand, researchers report that parental attitudes towards media violence can mitigate the impact it has on children. Huesmann and Bacharach conclude, "Family attitudes and social class are stronger determinants of attitudes toward aggression than is the amount of exposure to TV, which is nevertheless a significant but weaker predictor."

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/effects_media_violence.cfm