Healthy MEdia: Commission for Positive Images of Women and Girls Releases "Elements of Healthy Media" Today!
For generations, media has had the power to inspire, educate, and entertain us. In recent years, this power has been bolstered by a wave of new technology that has enabled media to be immediate, interactive, and drastically more personal. This transformational shift in how we consume our media is literally changing the world.
For today’s youth, this means access to more media in more ways; research shows that kids consume upwards of 10 hours of recreational media a day! And this increased media consumption has consequences. The Girl Scout Research Institute (GSRI) has found that 9 in 10 girls say the fashion industry (89%) and/or the media (88%) place(s) a lot of pressure on teenage girls to be thin. Sixty percent say they compare their bodies to fashion models, and 32 percent of girls admit to starving themselves or refusing to eat as a strategy to lose weight. Clearly, messages and images in the media—particularly those regarding women and girls—are impacting girls’ confidence, body image, relationships, and leadership aspirations.
