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Experts suggest that parents' energy is better spent getting their daughters to look at and think critically about the unrealistic way the media portrays girls and women. This is most likely to occur if Mom or Dad is engaged in the process, too.
"Co-viewing [the act of parents watching TV or viewing the Internet with their daughters] allows parents and their daughters to talk about those patterns of [physical] representation," Hobbs says.
When parents learn firsthand how their daughters perceive celebrities, it can lead to a lesson in media literacy, explains Hobbs. That's why she and her research team at Temple University created a website called My Pop Studio. Visitors to the site, which is targeted at adolescent girls, can actually "create" their own celebrity images based on a host of physical attributes.
Results have proved disturbing. According to Hobbs, the majority of girls who engage in this online activity make themselves over to appear thin, white and blonde—even girls whose appearance differs substantially from that "ideal" image. Seeing the skewed self-images their daughters create gives parents a starting place for dialogue about body image as portrayed by the media. When parents can help their daughters recognize how unrealistic these images are—airbrushed to trim tummies and hide blemishes—girls may begin to feel better about the way they look, flaws and all.
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SOURCES: Renee Hobbs, EdD, associate professor, communications, Temple University. Elissa Gittes, MD, pediatrician, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Sarah Murnen, professor of psychology, Kenyon College. Carleton Kendrick, EdM, LCSW, social worker; co-author, Take Out Your Nose Ring, Honey, We're Going to Grandma's. Adrienne Ressler, MA, LMSW, national training director, The Renfrew Center. Dohnt, H. Developmental Psychology, September 2006; vol 42: pp 929-936.
