CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Sunday, December 9, 2007

I've got it!

Ok I have finally picked my angle on health deceptions: women's magazines negatively affecting women's body image. It is obvious that body images of women portrayed in the media today are so much thinner than of women in the past. It has created a health problem by the exposures to television, movies, magazines, and the Internet. By how women are seen in magazines it has lead all sorts of bad things such as eating disorders, obesity, and, most importantly, negative body images.

Progress # 7 - New (Health) Deceptions

So I might just have fixed my dilemma on narrowing down health deceptions in the media. Okay, are you ready for it?

- Deceptions in advertising for drugs and what they don’t tell you.

It wasn’t until recently that advertising for drugs became geared towards the people that take the drugs ant not the doctors or health professionals. This changed how the drug is being advertised; there isn’t a large concern to provide information to the consumer, but simply to sell the product. That means filling a ad with calming voices, soothing music, soft lights, and smiling people who said this drug helped them.

I found an article in Consumer Reports that is really interesting and talks about how new companies have to keep on putting out new drugs for problems people don’t really have. They do this to make money, not in concern that they are probably worrying their audiences with big words and similar symptoms so what they might already have.

Now Consumer Reports also uses the drug Requip as an example, but I have seen this one several times. Requip is a drug that helped Restless Leg Syndrome. The ad was filled with aesthetics and special effects. The music and lighting made RLS look to be a very large-scale issue that women had, but from what Consumer Reports says, it only affects 3% of adults. The whole ad was very played up. It put words in a doctors mouth, who’s we don’t know or know if he is even a real doctor, about the drug. Because of the special effects, it downplayed the strange effects like falling asleep while you drive, vomiting, and drowsiness. Ironic that this pill is supposed to help you sleep, while drowsiness is a side effect.

Hopefully I will have this health deception thing worked so I can start my paper!

Friday, December 7, 2007

Progress # 6 - Health Deceptions

Still having trouble finding health deceptions that relate to one another... But I have found research on personal responsibility.


Who is accountable to take personal responsibility for health deceptions? There is a huge problem in American for Americans overeating. According to the American Medical Association, a third are obese and another third are overweight. Although it seems that would be a personal problem, it’s not. American’s continue to eat too much and not exercise enough and hope that someone else will do something in order for them to lose weight. Such as in California, there was a consideration for a ‘California Childhood Obesity Prevention Act’. It would act as ban against soda being sold in public schools. What is shocking is that people were filing lawsuits against the companies! Just as Potter asks, “Are people really that weak willed that they need the government to ban something before they will stop consuming it?” (Potter p. 302).

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Progress # 5 - Health Deceptions

I’ve been having some troubles finding research to support myself that there are health deceptions in the media. I cannot find any reliable sources or ones that relate to my topic – which leads me to need to narrow down my topic. So, I am in a bit of a rut.

I did find some interesting information on health food though. This source questions how healthy the food choices you make are. It says that some foods that claim to be healthier really aren’t and are worse for you. So that is a health deception. Americans are trying to be health conscious and with all of the “low fat”, “less sugar” and “all natural” food choices out there, it does make it difficult. Healthier food choices are everywhere, but do we really know what we’re eating? As dietitian David Grotto says, “I think some of the words being used on the labels are a little deceiving to the consumer.” (ABC Local) In one example I found, an organic version of macaroni and cheese may seem healthier, but in actuality, it has about the same amount of calories and MORE fat than the traditional. “There’s an assumption because those words are on the label, it’s a guarantee it’s a good or healthy item, and that is not always the case,” says Grotto.

Source- http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=health&id=5726993&pt=print

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Progress # 4 - Health Deceptions

Research

So it occurred to me while I was at Barnes & Noble last week, looking at women’s magazines, the media portrayals of women are really quite disturbing. Rarely is there a women on the cover of a magazine in a non revealing outfit or over done make-up. From what I saw, the popular magazines are full of women and girls who are white, dressed in proactive clothing, and are desperately thin. Women’s magazines, such as Health, Shape, Cosmopolitan, and Marie Claire are full of articles, printed in big, bold letters on the cover, on how to shed those holiday pounds or how to have the perfect look.

It seems ridiculous that these standards of being unnaturally thin are imposed to those who are curvier and are more mature looking than twig models. And if it’s not women needing to lose weight, they are aging and they need all these products. I’m over it. It’s contradicts what these magazines say they’re about: that they are for curvy women and want them to be healthy. This certainly doesn’t promote it and its no wonder many women strive to become what they cannot.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Progress # 3 - Health Deceptions

In researching for my health proposal I found a website that blamed Women’s Magazines because they show images of women that are virtually unattainable; they create a culture of thinness. “Researchers report that women’s magazines have ten and one-half times more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, and over three-quarters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a women’s bodily appearance – by diet, exercise, or cosmetic surgery”.

As this website asks, are magazines pushing for self-improvement or self-destruction? Women’s magazines constantly send messages about dieting, weight loss, and beauty. Who is to say that women should always have to change themselves?

Because there is such an overwhelming presence of painfully thin women, real women’s bodies, the women who aren’t a size 0-6, have become invisible in the media. Jean Kilbourne argues that women take these stereotypes and base themselves off of industry standards. After comparing themselves to other women, they use their bodies to compete for male attention. “This focus on beauty and desirability effectively destroys any awareness and action that might help to change that climate.”

Source –
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_beauty.cfm

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Progress # 2 - Health Deceptions

For the most part we do not see ill characters in the media. Suffering, pain, and medical help are typically not shown unless they are serious or life threatening. Getting help is portrayed to be very dramatic and high-strung, not preventative. “Hardly anyone dies a natural death on television.” (Potter p.91) Granted the mass amounts of television shows that depict everyday life, such as Gilmore Girls and Gossip Girls, why is it that we do not see television families acting and doing things as though a ‘real’ family would?