Is the Best Practice Educating Students on Body Image and Confidence from the UK or US Educational System?

The UK government is providing parents with packs with information to help their children's body image about themselves.  From BBC News:

A pack to help parents educate children on how the media alters images and to inspire them to be confident in their bodies has had government backing.

Developed for six to 11-year-olds by not-for-profit organisation Media Smart, the pack contains before and after touched-up images of celebrities such as Britney Spears.

It also looks at how ideas of the "perfect" body have changed.

The government said it wanted the pack to "empower parents".

"Young people are being set an impossible standard by images in media and advertising which can erode their self-esteem," she said.

"As parents, we are often aware of these issues, but may not have the advice and guidance we need to talk to our children. 

"I want the pack to empower parents to have those difficult conversations and open the door to discussion."

You can download the parent pack here.  It's only 13 pages but is full of information for children to understand the world of advertising and how this world is a fantasy world made up of photo retouches.

The pack explains:

• what is body image
• what shapes body image

Parents learn raise these issues and questions with their children:

• Are the images children see every day affecting their body confidence?
• Help children understand the pictures they see
• Asking their children "are the pictures we see in the media real"?

The packet details how the magic of advertising works to sell products through the use of airbrushing, digital enhancement and photo manipulation.  There are photos in the packet showing bust enhancement and digitally enhanced photos illustrating enhanced skin color and smoothness.  

One interesting fact listed is 75% of 11-21 girls diet to look more attractive.  What young woman who is "average looking" thinks she is attractive when she looks at photographs in magazines of extraordinary looking models...and those photos have been retouched to achieve that extraordinary level?  Would it help those 75% of women if they realized they were trying to achieve an ideal that is naturally not attainable?

The agency offers tips to help parents talk about their child's body image with the child, and the most important tip coming from this governmental agency is the first one listed, You are the most influential role model in our child's life.  From this very important premise, parents are asked to:

• Be positive
• Help your child accept other people's body sizes and shapes
• Listen to your child's concerns
• Don't tease them about their weight, body shape or looks
• Place value on the achievements 
• Respond to your child's concerns

This is a positive, non-punitive packet for parents to give their children information and learn to distinguish fantasy from reality.  This is quite different than the push to track children's Body Mass Index (BMI) here in the United States and to control food choices under the guise of healthy eating initiatives.  The DOEd's continual emphasis on food rather than acceptance of different body sizes and shapes may contribute to eating disorders, rather than making children healthier:

From Education News:

A new report released this week by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital has suggested that the numerous programs implemented by schools across the country designed to tackle childhood obesity could be going too far — and could potentially cause eating disorders.
 


Controlling what students eat and tracking their BMIs seems counter-intuitive to empowering them to make good choices when the food police is not around.   Maybe the UK's idea of  helping children accept other people's body sizes and shapes as well as their own, is more healthy than focusing on worrying about obesity and calorie counting food all day.  The UK is equipping parents and students with information for them to talk as a family and make informed decisions, rather than being "nudged" into behavior set by governmental agencies.

The Regulation (not Education) of Food "Choices"

A Scottish student gives this public school meal a low rating.  It meets nutritional standards...but will students eat it?

The political elites in Scotland and the United States have a common goal.  It's the quest for and maintaining governmental control.  Governmental authorities publish talking points of healthy eating and the problems of obesity, but when it comes down to it, the underlying belief from these elites (and bureaucrats) is a centralized governmental authority should handle all decisions about food consumption and production for its citizens.

The first story from BBC News details findings on food nutrition on outside of school food purchases:

School pupils in Glasgow who buy lunch outside school are likely to be consuming too much energy, fat and salt, a survey has found.

The Glasgow Centre for Population Health study bought 45 lunch items around five secondary school areas.

It found 37 samples did not comply with one or more of the nutrient standards for fat, saturated fat and salt.

The study concluded that more needed to be done to encourage healthier "stay-on-site" lunchtime eating among pupils. 

What "encouragement" (or "nudge") does a government provide to encourage healthier "stay-on-site" lunchtime eating?

This study concluded that several factors needed to be addressed if healthy eating was to be increased amongst secondary school pupils.

These included the use of licensing and planning powers to control the number and concentration of take-away food outlets near schools and the possible introduction of taxes on unhealthy foods and subsidisation of healthy foods. 

Glasgow City Council, which commissioned the research, said it was further evidence that its stay-on-site healthy eating initiative - The Big Eat In - was a better option for pupils.

One option entertained is to penalize the take away food outlets by restricting what they can cook and/or institute a tax on "unhealthy foods" near the school because these private businesses don't support the governmental nutritional standards.  A private business can be told what/how to cook food and/or suffer financial penalties if these standards aren't followed. 

What do these Scottish "food fixes" have to do with America?  A governmental board can't penalize a private business for food choices and service in America....right?  It seems as New York City is toying with the same mandate ideas as Scotland:...except this mandate would include adults.  From Hot Air:

Like I said a few weeks ago, this was always the goal of the otherwise dumb soda regs. A restriction on portion sizes makes no sense when it’s limited to one kind of beverage and a select few types of vendors except as a way to inure the public to more draconian regulations down the line. Ban big sodas now, let people get used to it, and then if/when the city’s obesity rate dips — for whatever reason(s) — flog the hell out of those statistics as proof that dietary nannyism works and should be pursued more aggressively. No surprise, then, that the city health board might be thinking about bold new frontiers in keeping you from stuffing your face.

What is surprising is that they’re doing it so soon. This strategy depends on going very slowly at first so that initial worries about a slippery slope will ease. Instead, sounds like they’re ready to turn this into a slippery water slide. Bad move:

“The popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda,” said Bruce Vladeck, a senior adviser at Nexera Consulting and one of the mayor’s appointees to the 11-member board.
The board yesterday agreed to put Bloomberg’s big-soda ban up for a public hearing July 24, but also talked about the merits of limiting other high-calorie treats.
A large tub of movie-theater popcorn has up to 1,650 calories.
“There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories . . . and I’m not so sure what the rationale is not to include those,” said member Dr. Joel Forman, a pediatrics professor at Mount Sinai.

The rationale for skipping milkshakes — for now — is, I guess, that there’s some nutritional benefit to milk-based drinks whereas soda is pure crapola. But of course, it’s not the milk that’s doing the heavy caloric lifting in the average latte syrup bomb, it’s the sugar. Why not drop a portion-size restriction on Starbucks too and let customers supplement their lost milk with a cup out of the carton at home? (Why not just ban the sugar and syrup altogether?) Answer: Because the well-educated diet-minded liberals who sneer at soda consumption kind of enjoy their morning mochaccinos, and if the state starts coming after that now, then Bloomberg might have a real backlash on his hands. Paternalism’s for the rubes, not for the overclass. 

 Paternalism’s for the rubes, not for the overclass.  There you have it in a nutshell.  The mandates coming from Scotland to control children's consumption of food outside of school or NYC controlling sodas, milkshakes and popcorn for adults as well as children has more to do with governmental control than teaching and allowing personal responsibility and freedom for individuals.   Regardless of what the authorities claim about food choices, the fact is, the choice is taken away and we are mandated to certain items.  It's not OUR choice, it is what we are being "allowed".  (That's the same premise school "choice" operates under as well).

What happened to a Scottish girl who blogged about cafeteria food at a public school paid for by taxpayers, while the Scottish government explores mandates to penalize private restaurants?  Her blogs (started by her and her dad as a writing exercise) were eventually banned by the local council but then overturned after public outcry:

Martha began publishing photographs of her Lochgilphead Primary School lunches on 30 April.

She gives each meal a 'food-o-meter' and health rating, and counts the number of mouthfuls it takes her to eat it.

As well as improving her writing, Martha revealed: "The good thing about this blog is dad understands why I am hungry when I get home." 

An Argyll and Bute Council spokesperson said: "Our school meal provision is fully compliant with nationally agreed nutritional standards.

"Young people make a choice from at least two meals and salad, vegetable, yoghurt and cheese options are available each day."

This is the international food playbook:

A culture that redefines food choices as moral issues will demonize the people who don’t share the tastes of the priest class. A culture that elevates eating to some holistic act of ethical self-definition - localvore, low-carbon-impact food, fair trade, artisanal cheese - will find the casual carefree choices of the less-enlightened as an affront to their belief system. Leave it to Americans to invent a Puritan strain of Epicurianism.

It will tell you what and how much to eat and it is following legal standards.  It's not concerned if you are still hungry or what you are hungry for that day and individuals shouldn't be concerned about making personal choices.  It is controlling your choices and telling you its choices are good for you.  

 






 

What you will NEVER Read in an Arne Duncan Department of Education Press Release.

Should THESE be the buzzwords of education reform?

Andreas Schleicher, the developer of the PISA test surmises why Chinese students outperform other students:

"In China, more than nine out of 10 children tell you: 'It depends on the effort I invest and I can succeed if I study hard.'

I would wager you will never hear Arne Duncan state the preceding quote about American students or use the following (Schleicher speaking about the Chinese students) as a talking point and goal for American education:

"They (students) take on responsibility. They can overcome obstacles and say 'I'm the owner of my own success', rather than blaming it on the system."

I haven't see the mainstream educational media publish this self-sufficient and individual responsibility belief either.  Rather we are inundated (even in high income suburban districts) that "educational inequity" is the reason American students can't/won't learn.  Common core standards, charter schools, open enrollment, and the redistribution of teachers/finances are all contained in Race to the Top to "fix" these educational inequities.

What are Schleicher's findings about educational inequity in China?

"Even in rural areas and in disadvantaged environments, you see a remarkable performance."

In particular, he said the test results showed the "resilience" of pupils to succeed despite tough backgrounds - and the "high levels of equity" between rich and poor pupils.

"Shanghai is an exceptional case - and the results there are close to what I expected. But what surprised me more were the results from poor provinces that came out really well. The levels of resilience are just incredible.

"In China, the idea is so deeply rooted that education is the key to mobility and success."

Are you surprised these findings were published in a non-American publication and not on the Department of Education website?  Here's a sample of what Duncan's messaging is for American education in a Department of Education press release:

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced he would form a bipartisan commission to examine educational equity and promised to pursue federal policies that would advance equity in the nation's K-12 schools.

In a speech at the conference marking the 100th anniversary of the National Urban League, Duncan told civil rights leaders that the Obama administration's school reform agenda is benefiting students of color and those growing up in poverty through the Race to the Top program, the Promise Neighborhoods program, and other competitive programs, as well as maintaining formula programs focused on low-income children.

"In so many ways, our reform agenda is all about equity," he said. "Competition isn't about winners and losers. It's about getting better."

He said he was open to discussing criticisms of the administration's education agenda and promised to remain "deeply engaged" with civil rights leaders to address their concerns about school reform.

"You are partners and allies in the cause of public education," Duncan said. "This is a movement. This is the civil rights issue of our time."

To address fiscal inequities in K-12 schools, Duncan said the Department of Education is establishing the Equity and Excellence Commission. The 15-member panel will obtain broad public input about inequities in K-12 education and examine how those inequities contribute to the achievement gap. The panel will submit recommendations to Duncan on how to address those inequities.

Maybe the educational reformers in America have it wrong.  It's not so much about educational inequity and bad teachers.  Maybe a large part of the solution is teaching resiliency to students, as well as personal responsibility. 

These goals aren't listed anywhere in this federal program.  Is it perhaps because this education reform really isn't about reforming education?