Monday, November 16, 2009

Girls' Self-Esteem Coming Under Fire

Girls' self-esteem coming under fire is the headline of a fantastic article running today in Alabama's Times Daily. The article deals with the external pressures set on girls to attain a certain type of body in today's society. Of the beauty standard, author Jess Weiner says it's not up to the girls to decide:
"Women's bodies for a long time have been separated from women's lives... We're
used to seeing women's bodies pulled apart and hyper-airbrushed so as to look
like mechanized, robotic images of a woman's body."

Evidence of this is not hard to miss - check out website about-face.org for a more in depth analysis of media messages that affect self-esteem and body image.

The Times Daily piece also touches base with GSUSA's own Judy Schoenberg. Schoenberg relates research to the topic conducted by The Girl Scout Research Institute by saying,
"In 2006, we released a report called the 'New Normal' about what girls say
about healthy living, and we talked in terms of the childhood obesity epidemic,
how they define health and what health means to them... What we found is that
girls view health not just about physical health, but there's an emotional
component to it, too."

Make sure you check out the article - and let us know your thoughts on the matter. What connections do you make between the media and self-esteem?
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