Wow, what an inspiring post. Media has a strange and powerful magic, does it not? Sometimes benign, sometimes uplifting, sometimes dangerous.

All my life I’ve played video games. Obsessively. Compulsively, even. And I’m a programmer, so I type all the time. For about 3 years I’ve suffered pain in my wrists, arms and hands. Finally, I had to give up playing video games. Three years ago I if you had said to me that video games are like crack I would have told you that’s an exaggeration. Today, I need only think back on all the times I continued to play them while still in desperate pain to realize how accurate the analogy really is.

But video games can also be part of that “trash media”, and the point I’m trying to make here is that when I finally did throw them away, I found myself with time on my hands. Instead of using the time to rot in front of a screen, I’ve tried to use it to explore myself and my life. I’ve read more, I’ve done more, and I actually feel like a much more “whole” person for it.

I’m trying to fix my hands, and I desperately want to play video games again, but I know now that if that day ever comes, they will be just one part of my life, not its central, defining characteristic. It’s about moderation, I think. Trash is an escape, a treat to savor once in a while like chocolate. We need it, but if it becomes the center of our diet, we become unhealthy.

Although I am biased because I know the writer and think she is a fabulous person, but this post rocks!!! I always feel that the media has too much power over our personal lives and are nothing but voices of fear. Good job Shelby!!!

Thank goodness you wrote this Shelby. Now this is an issue worth going on and on about so let me jump in with you. I found these statistics and sites for those of you who are interested

Body Image Statistics – Dieting Statistics – Body Type StatisticsOver one person’s lifetime, at least 50,000 individuals will die as a direct result of their eating disorder.
Eating Disorders affect a large number of people in the United States. The statistics state that:
• Approximately 7 million girls and women struggle with eating disorders
• Approximately 1 million boys and men struggle with eating disorders
Unfortunately, the media pushes an unnatural body type, making it difficult for us to accept natural beauty:
• The average American woman is 5’4″ tall and weighs 140 pounds
• The average American model is 5’11” tall and weighs 117 pounds
• Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women
Children are influenced by their parents, peers and the media:
• 42% of elementary school students between the 1st and 3rd grades want to be thinner
• 80% of children who are ten years old are afraid of being fat
Calorie restriction and other diets are common:
• 25% of men and 45% of women are on a diet on any given day
• 80% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance
• 51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet
• 35% of “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 25% will progress to partial or full syndrome eating disorders
• 91% of women recently surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% dieted “often” or “always”
• Americans spend over $40 billion on dieting and diet related products each year
The diet industry is a 40 billion dollar industry. This figure is amazing considering 95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight within 1-5 years.
If you are hungry for more statistics go to http://womensissues.about.com/cs/bodyimage/

Here are some cool sites too I especially like this next one.

Love Your Body Day! http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/index.html This site is awesome – lots of information for people wanting to get informed on this issue and who want to find some solidarity with other women (us men could probably use some of this wisdom too – at least those of us who don’t look like Brad Pitt). Oh and they have a contest every year for a poster for Love Your Body Day http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/health/lyb/postercontest.html .

Feminists struggle with body image too – http://www.now.org/nnt/fall-2002/lybd.html

Interesting info and some activist links at this page on Peel Public Health http://www.region.peel.on.ca/health/commhlth/bodyimg/media.htm

Media Awareness promotes critical thinking in young people about the media and they have a nice little spot on this issue http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm Also they have some of the stereotypes for minorities and other specific groupings.

Thanks Shelby for this great first blog – give us more. Your voice is a wonderful addition to the Driving Socrates community. Welcome.

Those statistics about children are frightening. Did kids feel like that about their body image when we were in school, or is this a more recent phenomenon? Either way it’s pretty scary. Couple poor body image in kids with the horrible foods like McDonalds that are very aggressively marketed towards them, and it’s not hard to understand there’s a real problem.

I’m 31, and I know I felt that about my body when I was in high school and even junior high. I went on “Nutrisystem” when I was only 15, and I truly did not need it. I can even remember the last summer that I felt good about my body. I was 12.

Thanks for those great links and encouraging words, Andrei! I’m forwarding some of the links to my aunt to look at with her 10 year old daughter.

And thank you, Eric, for participating in this discussion. Video games, much like food or gossip or compulsive exercise, are one of those insidious, socially acceptable addictions. Congrats to you for realizing that you needed a break to re-evaluate their position in your life. Everything in moderation.

Ahhh, Shelby, such a stupendous post! You are such an inspiration! Although it is impossible to limit all of the crap coming in to our minds about our bodies, making deliberate choices to curtail negativ inputs is so powerful. I’m aware of how tough it is to deal with television around this. Example: The L Word. As a lesbian, I am delighted that “my” people are mainstreamed, becoming acceptable. However, how many lesbians do I know who look like that (or have sex that much)? And when I watch it, happy that lesbians are getting good press, what does it do to my own body image?

As a very heavy woman, I have struggled with the Fat Liberation movement, not wanting to identify with it, but feeling like I lack courage when I avoid it. One of my students did her research on women who have RESISTED negative body image messages, and one of her research participants was the woman who wrote the book FAT!SO? (www.fatso.com)–when I went to the site and found a bunch of fat butts, I realized that these butts looked a lot like the butt of the Venus of Willendorf (http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfdiscovery.html)
the oldest goddess figure ever found. She was the epitome of female beauty at the time, and I have a figure of her on my dresser to remind me that, had I been born another time, I would fit right in. Another important input to me has been the Healthy at Every Size movement, which combats the stereotype that heavy people can’t be healthy. Because we can’t control a lot of the input that we receive about our bodies, it’s important to bolster ourselves with positive images and messages.