Center on Media and Child Health

Someday Melissa: Making a Movie, Changing Lives

The power of media lies in the ability to engage people in a story and influence what they know and think about a particular issue.  When Judy Avrin lost her teen daughter, Melissa, to an eating disorder last year, she chose to use the power of media to tell her daughter's story to the world. 

Her documentary, Someday Melissa, recently received attention from the New York Times and The Today Show, and Judy is discovering that the work she is doing to honor her daughter is already changing lives. We asked Judy to write to us about her view on the power of media:

Someday...

I’ll eat breakfast.

I’ll keep a job for more than 3 weeks.

I’ll have a boyfriend for more than 10 days.

I’ll love someone.

I’ll travel wherever I want.

I’ll make my family proud.

I’ll make a movie that changes lives. 

When I found this writing in my daughter's journal after she died in 2009, I made the decision to go public that she died from an eating disorder. I began work on a documentary called Someday Melissa.  The recent media attention has resulted in an overwhelming response: hundreds of messages from around the world, thanking me for having the courage to speak out and bring eating disorders out of the shadows.  I’ve received messages that calls to helplines have increased, and that children have gone to their parents saying they didn’t really believe they could die and they need help.  

Never could I have imagined the power of media in helping others.  My sweet Melissa is changing lives with the media she dreamed of being part of.

If you are suffering with an eating disorder, or know somebody who is, there is help.  Reach out to the National Eating Disorder Association [NEDA] at http://nationaleatingdisorders.org, or call for assistance at 1-800-931-2237. 

Using Media to Show Instead of Tell

Last week, we blogged about an op-ed on photo retouching and body image by filmmaker Jesse Epstein.  Here, Jesse joins us as a guest blogger to expand upon the educational efforts she is working on. 

I spent my formative childhood years in Mozambique Africa, where full bodies and “child bearing hips” were celebrated. When I returned to the US as a pre-teen I was confused to find my friends obsessed with their weight, counting calories, and saying that they “hated their thighs”. I admired their magazine collages of models with flat bellies and joined my peers in the fight to stay slim. But this post isn’t just about my personal story, it’s about a public health issue.

People living in media-saturated cultures are exposed to hundreds of idealized images per day through advertising and magazines; almost all of which have been altered to perfection.  According to a magazine photo re-toucher I interviewed,

“Every picture has been worked on some twenty to thirty rounds, going back between the re-touchers and the agencies and the clients – they have been perfected to death. Just look at the magazines, and all that is there to alter your mind, alter your perception of what physical beauty is, and what the means of obtaining it are.” 

When even the models and actors themselves don’t “measure up” to their own perfected images, it is crucial for people to understand how images are constructed, and what massages they are sending. Providing the tools to examine these media messages, through Media Literacy, is pivotal at this point in time.

Many problems and poor choices, especially among teens and pre-teens, can be traced to poor self-esteem and the inability to reach an unrealizable ideal. These may include the decision to smoke, participate in unsafe sex and early sexual initiation, academic failure, and other very risky, often life-threatening, behaviors.

I strive, through the power of film, to tell stories than can show rather than tell. While mass media is often pegged as a culprit of social ills, it can also play a key role in education toward behavioral change.  So, I’m currently creating a series of films on media and physical perfection to be used as powerful public health tools –- to start often-difficult discussions, raise consciousness, and ultimately empower youth to make healthy choices.  I hope they are used by as many educators as possible.

34x25x36 - A documentary about mannequins and perfection.

Wet Dreams and False Images - Interviews with photo re-touchers expose how much alteration goes on before an ad is released.

The Guarantee - A dancer's story about his prominent nose and the effect it has on his career.

More information about Jesse's work:

>> Jesse's website

>> New Day Films

 

 

Achieving Perfect Beauty with an Airbrush

Filmmaker Jesse Epstein recently published a video Op-Ed on the New York Times website.  This behind-the-scenes talk with real photo retouchers explores how pervasive this practice is within the beauty industry, and how it affects people's perceptions of their own beauty. 

In the video she mentions a 2007 study which found that just 3 minutes of looking at fashion magazines reduced college women's self-esteem.

So how can we protect the self-esteem of the young people we know?  By teaching them how photos are altered, they can begin to see how many media images are not representations of reality.  See our previous post on other examples of photo retouching and share them with a young person you know. 

Hint: Seeing videos like these, that look "behind-the-scenes", make young people feel empowered; now they know what's really going on and they won't be fooled again...

Glamorizing Thinness through Pro-Anorexia Websites

Last week, the French parliament’s lower house adopted a bill that would make it illegal to publicly glamorize or encourage extreme thinness. In particular, the bill cracks down on “pro-ana”—or pro-anorexia—websites, where people with eating disorders can go for advice on how to lose weight, for photos of waif-like celebrities that offer “Thinspiration,” and for general support.

Pro-ED (eating disorder) websites have raised controversy for as long as they've existed--in fact, when public, most are taken down within days of appearing on the web. And although some call these sites sanctuaries for people with common experiences, others see them as "encouraging prolonged nutritional deprivation that would...[expose] them to risk of death or directly compromise health," which would make them illegal under this bill.

See research about pro-anorexia websites:

• Bardone-Cone et al (2007). "What does viewing a pro-anorexia website do? An experimental examination of website exposure and moderating effects."
• Bardone-Cone et al (2006). "Investigating the impact of pro-anorexia websites: a pilot study."
• Dias (2003). "The ANA sanctuary: Women's pro-anorexia narratives in cyberspace."
• Fox et al (2005). "Pro-anorexia, weight-loss drugs and the Internet: An 'anti-recovery' explanatory model of anorexia."

Dove Real Beauty Followup

In February, we posted some fun resources for teaching students about media and body image.  One of those resources was a Dove ad showing the behind-the-scenes footage of how a regular woman is transformed into a model.  The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty aims to show the beauty of everyday women by highlighting the unrealistic ideals shown in the media.  Their newest ad in the campaign has been released.  Titled "Onslaught", it shows how girls are bombarded throughout their lives with beauty messages:

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood warns that although this message is positive, Dove's parent company (Unilever) owns brands like Axe body spray, notorious for their ads focusing on women's immediate attraction to men wearing the scent. 

 

The Early Sexualization of Girls

Anyone who has seen the minuscule outfits sported by Bratz dolls or watched a music video lately can tell you that young women and girls are increasingly being portrayed as sex objects.  Today, the American Psychological Association released a report on the sexualization of girls and women in advertising, merchandising, and media.  Their review of research shows consequences in a number of areas:

• Cognitive and Emotional Health: Sexualized images can cause people to be uncomfortable with their own bodies, leading to anxiety and shame.
• Mental and Physical Health:  Eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression have all been linked to sexualization in the media. 
• Sexual Development:  Girls may have trouble developing a healthy sexual self-image if all they see in the media are unhealthy sexual behaviors.

Read more about the report:

• USA Today article
• APA Press Release
• Full Report
• What Parents Can Do

Fun Resources for Body Image Media Mastery

Anyone who compares themselves to celebrities and models always falls short.  No one can live up to the flawless images in advertising or on the red carpet.  On top of having an entire staff of stylists ready to make them look good, photos are often digitally retouched for advertisements and magazines. 

Next week, CMCH will be partnering with TeamUp Marblehead to speak to 7th and 8th grade students about how media affect body image.  In our presentations, we use these fun resources to give students a "behind the scenes" look at how ads and magazine photos are altered to present an image of perfection:

• Greg Apodaca's Portfolio - roll over the picture to see how digital retouching makes this woman have a smaller waist, a larger chest, clearer skin, a smaller belly button, and no wrinkles.


• Fluid Effect - click on Portfolio, then Before & After to see how these photos are changed so that people appear flawless.


• This video shows how a woman is transformed from regular person to billboard ad:

Dieting Articles Lead to Unhealthy Weight Control

In a 5-year study of over 2,500 teens, van den Berg et al found that reading magazine articles about diet and weight loss lead to unhealthy weight control behaviors among girls.  Compared to girls who did not read these articles, frequent readers were twice as likely to skip meals, fast, and smoke cigarettes, and three times as likely to vomit or use laxatives in an attempt to control their weight. 

In an Associated Press article about the study, CMCH Researcher Alison Field commented: "The articles may be offering advice such as cutting out trans fats and soda, and those are good ideas for everybody...But the underlying messages these articles send are 'You should be concerned about your weight and you should be doing something.'"

See more research on magazines and body image from the CMCH Database of Research.