1. Sizing Up The Media:
Decoding the Messages
Presented by: Leta Marchand BSW, RSW
Bulimia Anorexia Nervosa Association
Windsor, ON

2. Statistics on Eating Disorders
 1 in 5 women will suffer from an eating disorder
 Young men represent about 10% of individuals with
eating disorders
 70% of women and 35% of men are dieting at any
given time
 98% of all diets fail and not for lack of will- power
 Canadian children in grades 3 & 4 say they’d rather
lose a parent, get cancer or live through a nuclear war
than be fat
 In one study of 500 schoolgirls, 81% of 10 year olds
reported they had dieted at least once

3. Dying to Be Thin and Our Fear of
Fat
 What stereotypes and thoughts surround the
following words:
 THIN
 FAT

4. Impact the media
has on all of us:
 Average person sees 400-600 ads per day, that’s 50
million ads by the age of 60 years. 1 out of 11
commercials has a direct message about beauty
 1990’s showed that Americans spent $50 billion
annually on diet products. This exceeds the
projections for the entire federal Education,
Training, Employment and Social Services budgets
by five to ten billion dollars.

5. Impact the media
has on all of us:
 dieters reporting the cost to be $180 per pound."
Fraser, L. (1997), Losing It: American’s
Obsession With Weight and the Industry That
Feeds On it. New York: Dutton.
 Thinness not only represents attractiveness but
also symbolizes success, self-control, and higher
SES

10. Plastic Surgery Statistics
Nearly 11.5 million cosmetic surgical and
nonsurgical procedures were performed in the
United States in 2006
 Since 1997 the overall number of cosmetic procedures
has increased 446 percent
 Breast Implants are up 18 percent from 2005
 Since 1997, surgical procedures increased 123 percent,
while nonsurgical procedures have increased 749
percent

11. …..Continued
 Americans spent just under $12.2 billion on
cosmetic procedures; $7.6 billion was for
surgical procedures, and $4.5 billion was for
nonsurgical procedures
 COURTESY THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR
AESTHETIC PLASTIC SURGERY (ASAPS)

14. PORTION DISTORTION IN OUR
SOCIETY

18. Steve Erhardt
The obsession to become a real
life Ken doll. Over 30 Plastic
Surgery's!
Sarah Burge-”I'm the human Barbie doll”
This was actually her 26th operation. Before she
decided she wasn't happy with her bum, this 46-
year-old mother of three had 'corrected' almost
every other part of her body.

19. Health-related costs of violence against
women in Canada exceed $1.5 billion a year

23. A Quote from Goffman
 Three basic techniques are used to establish
superiority or power: size, attention and
positioning. People in charge of their own lives
typically stand up straight, alert and ready to
meet the world. In contrast, the bending of the
body conveys unpreparedness and
submissiveness (Goffman, 1976)

29. Activity: Critique the following images:
1

30. Question the motives of the advertisers and the fashion
industry!
 Advertising Standards Canada
 350 Bloor St. E.
 Toronto, Ont. M4W 1H5
 416-961-6311
 Newspapers and Magazines
 Publishers and Editors names listed in the masthead (first
few pages)
 Media Advocacy Groups:
 www.about-face.org
 www.mediawatch.ca
 www.bana.ca

31. 5 Ways to LOVE your Body
 Stop criticizing yourself and holding yourself to
unrealistic ideals.
 Learn difference between what you can
change and what you must learn to accept.
 Throw away the scales.
 Fight back against socially defined ideals.
 Practice self-acceptance through self-talk.