Friday, July 23, 2010

Urge Your Representative to Co-Sponsor the Healthy Media for Youth Act!

The Girl Scout Research Institute’s latest survey, Girls and Body Image 2010, revealed alarming statistics about teen girls’ relationships with the media and fashion industry. Nearly 90 percent of girls surveyed say the media places a lot of pressure on girls to be thin and 60 percent of girls compare themselves to models. Body dissatisfaction can result from this comparison, and leads to serious health problems, such as unhealthy eating and dieting habits. More than half of girls (55 percent) admit they diet to lose weight and 31 percent admit to starving themselves or refusing to eat as a strategy to lose weight.

This research prompted Girl Scouts of the USA to work closely with Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) to develop the Healthy Media for Youth Act (H.R. 4925). This bill supports media literacy programs and youth empowerment groups, facilitates research on how images of women and girls impact youth, and establishes a National Taskforce on Women and Girls in the Media to develop voluntary standards that promote healthy, balanced, and positive images of girls and women.

The importance of this bill is best summarized by the father of a Daisy Girl Scout from Colorado, who is “happy to see that GSUSA has put its support behind the bipartisan supported Healthy Media for Youth Act (H.R. 4925). Our kids are assaulted every day with negative images of girls and women and H.R. 4925 can help combat this. Thank you very much for always thinking of our precious girls first!"

Girl Scouts is now seeking Congressional cosponsors for the bill. Join the Girl Scout Advocacy Network, www.girlscouts4girls.org, today to send a letter to your member of Congress asking them to sign on to the bill and be a Voice for Girls! Currently none of the Alabama representatives have signed on to co-sponsor. Please encourage them to do so!