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Posts from the ‘In the News’ Category

Are “Snacker” and “Lead Bottom” the real villains in Disney’s “Habit Heroes” exhibit?

Snacker, Lead Bottom, and Glutton of Disney's recently closed "Habit Heroes" exhibit

Last week yahoo posted an article in its news section addressing the recent closing of Disney’s “controversial fat fighting exhibit” entitled “Habit Heroes.” The exhibit was originally produced to raise awareness and “fight” childhood obesity. The exhibit included cleverly named super heroes “Will Power” and “Callie Stenics” to fight the not-so-cleverly named evil villains “Snacker,” “Lead Bottom” and “Glutton.” The yahoo article says that the criticism for this exhibits roots from its “potential to shame overweight children and misrepresent the causes of the global obesity crisis.”  The story uses the words of respected bariatric surgeon, Yoni Freedhoff, to argue that there is indeed a problem within the health realm of children but offensive games that bluntly make fun of and stereotype the personalities of overweight children is not the way to handle it and unfortunately it makes Disney the “schoolyard bully.” The article closes with health statistics for U.S children and the main causes addressing the closing of the exhibit, including a petition that was signed by 300 protestors before it’s closing that argued “the attraction and game feature negative stereotypical characters, traditionally used to torment overweight kids, and will potentially reinforce and strengthen a cycle of bullying, depression, disease, eating disorders and even suicidal thoughts.”

The lecture from Wednesday’s class addressed candy and sweets and how they get into the hands of children.  Clearly, the problem of overindulgence in sweets and unhealthy food in the current generation of children is a problem considering the many statistics outlining the rise in childhood obesity. I agree with the above yahoo news article that the problem should be addressed but Disney failed to do it in a respectable and considerate way. All in all, I don’t believe the bad diet of many children is their own fault so why should Disney encourage others to see overweight children as ugly, disgusting and lazy, much like “Snacker” and “Lead Bottom”? As discussed in class, the chances of children these days to spend their money on candy is a lot less likely and ironically, it was mentioned that the institutions, such as schools, that stress most about concerns of childhood obesity are the places in which children are most likely to receive unhealthy food. If big companies, such as Disney and Blue Cross, are willing to spend millions of dollars on exhibits and programs that stress childhood obesity then maybe they should am their arguments at the adults that provide children with unhealthy and be both considerate and aware of the effects in will have on current children struggling with obesity. I believe it to be a hard situation to handle but hope that big companies will be more considerate of their affects next time they decide to open such a controversial exhibit.

They have recently canceled the site where you could see and read all the characters of Disney’s “Habit Heroes” exhibit but check out the bottom of this linked blog, The Weight Loss Rollercoaster, to check out a couple of the villain characteristics.

 

Sweetening Our Children’s Future

Junk food has become a hazard to the American diet. Many say that parents are setting their kids up for failure by allowing them to eat sugar packed processed foods. Poor diets and too much sugar have been known to cause a slue of problems to children’s health including obesity, diabetes, and, as some bloggers say, lowered IQ. With this becoming such a huge issue, much legislation is trying to be passed limiting food producers ability to advertise for junk food.

In Maren Stewart’s article “Sweetening Our Children’s Future: Addressing Junk Food Marketing,” she lays out how big of an issue this has become, the impact of marketing, and how American’s can help. She provides the statistics that one out of three American kids are overweight or obese. As far as junk food marketing goes, Maren states, that children who were exposed to junk food advertising consumed an average of 45% more than children who viewed other advertisements. She also gives suggestions like asking grocers for a candy-free check out line and talk with kids about food marketing and encourage them to make healthy choices instead of giving in to the cartoon or celebrity on the box.

Although we probably won’t see a change in junk food advertising anytime soon, these numbers put it into perspective just how huge of an issue this is on American children. Many people argue that it is not the government’s place to step in and tell Americans how to eat and what to eat or that there are more important issues for the government to address right now. Personally, I agree with Maren that this has become too large of a problem and intervention is needed. It is parents responsibility to make sure that their children live a healthy life and if they are not going to do that, there needs to be an outside force to step in. This issue has nothing to do with American freedoms, but rather saving our children from life threatening illnesses.

TV Taught Me How to Party

Reiner Hanewinkel of the Institute for Therapy and Health Research in Kiel, Germany, recently published the results of a study determining the connection of alcohol use in TV and Movies and binge drinking among kids and teens. This study is reminiscent of our class discussion over whether or not TV shows and Movies teach children behaviors.

The study surveyed 16,000 students from Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Scotland. Researchers asked the students to pick out at least 50 movies or shows they had seen from a list of 600 released between 2004 and 2009 in those countries. The members of the Institue for Therapy and Health Research found 86% of the chosen medias to have at least one scene in which characters drank alcohol. The research team then asked the students about their own binge drinking habits and found that 27% had done it at least once. 10 to 20% of the students who had the lowest exposure to alcohol on screen had participated in binge drinking, whereas 40% of the study participants who had seen the most alcohol in TV and movies had drank excessively.

The researchers concluded that, although, movies and TV shows may make alcohol use seem cool and mature, there is still no definite link between exposure to drinking in media and underage use of alcohol. Other factors that could be linked to child and teen alcohol use include, “their risk-taking behavior, how well they did in school and how much their friends and families drank.” Lesley Smith of Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom, does not think that study’s results should make parents panic over the movies their children are watching, but instead should make them think about changing their own alcohol related behaviors in the house.

Below is a trailer for  a new movie about a wild, high school party, that shows gratuitous use of  teenage drinking, “Project X”

Dr. Seuss’s legacy threatened?

The Lorax is one of the many books written by Dr. Seuss. The book focuses on industrialized society and its effects on the people within it. However, since the release of The Lorax movie, new controversy has arisen. In the article written by the Washington Times, ‘Controversial Lorax a Threat to Dr. Seuss Legacy?’, the writers and many others believe that the movie has a hidden agenda to it. Many believe they are promoting commercialism and green messaging. Capitalism was also promoted through a musical number. In the film, Mazda promotes it’s new CX-5. A version of the car can be seen driven around by one of the characters. The car was said to be “Truffula tree friendly”, this angered many environmentalists. They did not like fact that producers were using a children’s film to advertise their product. They felt as if it took away from the nature of the film, which was supposed to be for children. This is quite similar to Lynn Spigel’s, Seducing the Innocent. In class when we discussed 50s television, we also discussed the consumerism promoted withing children’s shows. In the show Howdy Doody, the Howdy Doody puppet was being promoted. Also, in the show Space Cadet, Kraft Caramel’s were being promoted. The way they went about promoting was throughout the show or during commercial breaks. They promoted these things because they were children’s products.  However, in the The Lorax, the car being promoted is clearly not for children. It is for adults. Therefore, this product was being aimed towards adults in the audience and not the children. No child that is 5-10 is looking at the car and saying “ooh mommy I want that!” The whole purpose of The Lorax movie was changed through the promoting of consumerism. This movie was intended for children to watch and enjoy, not to sell as car.

 

How to Motivate Change Without the Stigma

Controversial "Stop Sugarcoating It Georgia" ad campaign

Controversial "Stop Sugarcoating It Georgia" ad campaign

 

Do anti-obesity advertisements effectively promote healthy lifestyles, or do they merely stigmatize ill-fated children who have grown up in unhealthy households? One recent news article, published by NPR correspondent Kathy Lohr, argues the latter.

Lohr’s argument centers around the “Stop Sugarcoating It, Georgia” ad campaign, which uses scare tactics similar to those found in anti-smoking and anti-methamphetamine advertisements, in an attempt to reverse the growing trend of childhood obesity in a state with “the second highest number of obese kids in the country.” Lohr claims that while the message of healthy living is an important one, the tactics being used may provide more harm than good, as they disparage the same children who are already made to feel inadequate through the perpetual teasing and bullying they endure both at school and on the playground.

In addition to being detrimental to a child’s self-esteem, these advertisements may actually promote the exact behavior that they are trying to prevent, as Georgia State University professor Rodney Lyn states, “we know that stigmatization leads to lower self-esteem, potential depression. We know that kids will engage in physical activity less because they feel like they’re going to be embarrassed. So there are all these other negative effects.” So the question becomes, why does society continue to employ stigma as a motivator for change, when positive reinforcement has proven itself a much more effective tool?

In relation to class discussion, this is very much the same question brought up by the Free to Be story, “Ladies First,” where a young girl is eaten by a group of tigers due to her inability to recognize the negative consequences of her condescending and stuck-up attitude. “Ladies First,” similarly to Georgia’s anti-obesity campaign, focuses on a child’s negative quality, rather than a positive one, which may lead to many children thinking that they are inherently flawed in some way, when in reality, the problem may be caused more directly by the child receiving poor parenting than by the child itself. This potentially damaging effect of children viewing themselves as flawed may be the reason that “this ‘bad’ female subject [was] somewhat unusual for the Free to Be series, which [tended] to celebrate conventional images of bold and adventurous girls rather than to condemn conventional ones” (235). But if that is the case, it would seem to be in everyone’s best interest to focus solely on children’s positive attributes, rather than negative ones. That way, an obese or overly bratty child will be more inclined to change, as they won’t see themselves as holistically flawed individuals, but rather they will be able to isolate the problem, making change seem far more attainable.

 

 

The Lorax: Environmentalism Then, Commercialism Now

Susan Linn of the Huffington Post wrote an article recently about the “slew of corporate cross-promotions” making an appearance thanks to the new film The Lorax, an adaptation of the famous Dr. Seuss children’s book.  Linn criticizes the use of the new film to promote commercial products such as HP computers, Seventh Generation diapers, and Mazda SUVs.  The Lorax is a children’s book that was published in 1971 and originally taught a lesson in environmentalism.  The use of this book’s popularity to create a film that in turn fuels commercialism has caused a controversy; Linn explains that the environmental message of the book directly conflicts with the creation and distribution of products using the film and the Lorax as selling points.

This article nicely complements Chudacoff’s piece on commercialization.  The merging of a “‘backstory’ of fantasy with a product” is exactly what’s happening with The Lorax (pg. 180).  Advertisers are taking advantage of a beloved book and using its big budget movie deal to sell products.  Linn talks about how “[m]arketers routinely exploit children’s emotional connection to media characters to sell them on practically everything.”  Chudacoff discusses exactly this issue and how it emerged in the 1950’s through the medium of television.  In his own article on toys and commercialization, Cross writes that the “defeat of reformers’ attempts to prohibit toy ads on television” contributed to the growing number of children consumers (pg. 291).  Based on the Huff Post article, it’s obvious that manufacturers have, as Cross states, “formed alliances with makers of children’s movies, TV cartoons, comic books…” to sell products with the Lorax as their middle man, something the “real Lorax” would have had no part in (pg. 293).

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax Trailer. Youtube. 2012.

TV, Video Games May Exacerbate Attention Problems

A recent article from the McClatchy-Tribune News Service suggests that environmental aspects like excessive television and video game exposure may have great influence on the impulsivity and attention abilities of children.  The article describes a study in which researchers observed the gaming habits of 3,000 children from a dozen schools in Singapore, aging from 8 to 17 .  The study revealed that the effects of video games were both positive and negative.  Video games may help with visual memory and attention, but they could diminish a child’s potential to complete goal-oriented tasks that require long term commitments.  This is because, researchers suggest, the excitement of gaming might make other activities seem more mundane than they actually are.  A young boy who has a passion for Mortal Combat or Call of Duty would likely skim through his nightly reading assignments, if he bothers to read them at all, as long as he can lose himself in the wonderful world of gaming at least once before bedtime.  The effects of this indulgence, as revealed by the study, increase the likelihood of impulsiveness and attention disorders.

A drawing used in an article about a video game addiction lawsuit. If children are constantly doing this instead of socializing, they are likely to suffer consequences.

This article is not suggesting that children who play video games are automatically impulsive and require medication if they want to make anything close to the grades their parents expect from them.  Referring to what was mentioned in one of our class discussions, parents should not destroy the intimate connection between electronic media and modern children because of the social consequences.  Sure, too much gaming may be a direct cause of impulsive children, but how would a boy be able to socialize with his friends by discussing the latest Xbox 360 game if his parents stripped gaming from him completely?  Believe me, being the middle child of five, television and video games are a huge topic in daily conversations among kids six and up.  TV and video games are too engrained in our culture to keep children away from them.  Even if a huge portion of the country’s parents succeeded in shutting out their children from electronic media, the social consequences for those children would have drastic effects on their self-esteem and social skills.  Parents should make it a top priority to regulate the amount of gaming and TV watching done by children in their household.  Before they force medication onto their children, parents must be sure they have attempted to deal with the biological and environmental influences on a child’s impulsivity and attention abilities.