Sophia Network

Call for a kitemark to identify airbrushed images

To coincide with Eating Disorders Awareness Week, the Royal College of Psychiatrists is calling for a new editorial code to be created to stop the media glamorising eating disorders and promoting unhealthy body images. They want to see more diverse bodies in the media instead and an emphasis on helping people to feel positive about their bodies.

Citing research that shows that the media plays a role in the development and maintenance of eating disorders, they highlight three areas where its influence can be toxic:

• Visual imagery - the promotion of very thin bodies as ideal, and the use of airbrushed images that imply physical perfection is attainable
• Magazine content - the prevalence of articles about dieting, body-image and plastic surgery as a means to enhance self-esteem; unbalanced articles about diets that ignore the dangers of extreme dieting; articles and images that normalise body criticism by pointing out celebrities' faults.
• Portrayal of eating disorders - media coverage that glamorises eating disorders and portray them as personal weakness rather than serious mental illnesses.

They make the following recommendations:

• More diverse use of models throughout the media in terms of weight, shape age, ethnicity and disability
• A ban on using underweight models
• A kitemark that raises awareness of the extent of digital manipulation of magazine images.
• A forum to be set up by the government to develop an editorial ethical code covering these issues
• The promotion of media literacy within schools to help young people deconstruct media images.

Their report is supported by beat, the eating disorder charity who celebrate 21 years of campaigning this year, and who have just launched their manifesto highlighting the issues they believe the next government needs to respond to in order to beat eating disorders. Of course, it's not just girls who suffer from eating disorders. Beat's Youtube channel has a video about David Samuels who has overcome anorexia.

Eating disorders

February 23 to 28 is Eating Disorders Awareness Week and Damaris have published a discussion starter on their website made with the BBC for the charity Beat. It uses the voice and experiences of a teenager who has had anorexia. You can download it here, and you can find out more about Beat on their website.