Equipoise grant funds body image video purchase

Wyoming educators, students and parent groups seeking support in actively addressing combating media messages that portray distorted images of girls and women and girls now have four new resources, thanks to a recent Equipoise Fund grant to the UW College of Education. Jane Warren, assistant professor of counselor education, used the grant to purchase four DVDs to support the Wyoming Films Freedom Project, established to enhance self image through mindful awareness, knowledge and critical thinking. Purchased videos include the latest version of award-winning author/lecturer Jean Kilbournes classic, Killing Us Softly, which explores gender representations in advertising. The grant also funded purchase of three other Kilbourne titles: Deadly Persuasion: The Advertising of Alcohol & Tobacco; Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies and Alcohol; and Slim Hopes: Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness. While all four DVDs will be soon be available for checkout by campus and community members through the WyoCARE Program (http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/CARE/, wyocare@uwyo.edu), Warren has identified three target audiences for their use: high schools, UW and the community college classes, and community groups with an interest in the health of young people. The idea is for to us become, in Kilbournes words, an aware, active, educated public that thinks of itself primarily as citizens rather than consumers, Warren says. Increasing awareness of the pervasiveness of advertising images and their impact on individuals perceptions. Focusing efforts on assisting young people, including high school students, with building these critical analysis skills is strategic, according to Warren. High school is a time when youre really developing your identity, where you are forming developing your values, and when where you become in some ways rebellious about the authority in the world, she says. This rebelliousness, so to speak, is the process of establishing a self identity. Young persons can be encouraged to become mindful and informed consumers to help them see how much they are being influenced, and be able to create a healthier sense of who they are not who they should be as described by advertisers and mass media producers. Adults are not immune, either. Youre not supposed to just look bad or get and feel old youre supposed to look perfect, be thin, and not age and are expected to fix things to become someone other than who you are, she says of new ads that target aging baby boomers. For more information, or to check out one of the DVDs, contact Warren at jwarren4@uwyo.edu or 307-766-3417.

Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008