Managing Media and Weight
Magazines with ultra-thin models; TV celebrities who are so thin that their chest bones show; $10 billion a year in food and beverage marketing to kids. No wonder a recent Harvard University study showed that 2/3 of underweight 12-year-old girls already think they\'re too fat. When you add in the fact that a third of our nation\'s children are either obese or in danger of becoming so, it\'s downright scary.
Magazines with ultra-thin models; TV celebrities who are so thin that their chest bones show; $10 billion a year in food and beverage marketing to kids. No wonder a recent Harvard University study showed that 2/3 of underweight 12-year-old girls already think they\'re too fat. When you add in the fact that a third of our nation\'s children are either obese or in danger of becoming so, it\'s downright scary.
Media plays a big role in our kids\' weight struggles. Between unrealistic images of slimness and the constant marketing to kids of junk food, our children are bombarded with messages that don’t result in healthy attitudes and practices when it comes to their bodies.
Here are a few tips to help your kids be realistic and healthy:
• De-code junk food ads. Point out that there’s a junk food ad every 5 minutes during Saturday morning cartoons. Tell your kids that the food and beverage industry spends billions of dollars to put pictures of favorite cartoon characters on less- than-healthy food. Ask your kids why they think advertisers place their ads where they do and use the celebrities they use. What emotions or aspirations are the advertisers hoping to create in your kids? What isn’t the advertiser saying in the ad? Click here for a great tip sheet.
• Do some myth busting. What promises do ads make that might be unrealistic? Help your kids do a “reality check” on the associations that ads create. Do your kids really think that if they buy a certain food, they\'ll look like the people selling it?
• Be a good role model yourself. Are you always complaining about those 10 pounds you can’t lose? Always referring to yourself as fat? Are you sitting around in front of the TV or computer or game console with a bowl of chips and a super-sized soda? We are our kids’ greatest teachers. Model thin? Nah. Model behavior? You bet!
• Take the TV out of your kid’s bedroom. A preschooler’s risk of obesity jumps 6 percent for every hour of TV watched and 31 percent if the TV is in his or her bedroom.
• Limit media time and balance it with other activities. A healthy media diet produces a healthy physical one.
