Post: How to Manage Magazines
How to Manage Magazines
A new University of Minnesota study found that teen girls "who frequently read magazine articles about dieting were more likely five years later to practice extreme weight-loss measures such as vomiting than girls who never read such articles."
While the results aren't surprising, they do serve as an important reminder for parents, especially during this New Year's season when resolutions often revolve around diets and fitness, even for young girls.
Here at Common Sense Media, we completely agree with the advice of the study's co-author Patricia van den Berg. "It possibly would be helpful to teen girls if their mothers didn't have those types of magazines around," she told the Associated Press, adding that it's up to parents to help their kids decode magazine's messages.
How do you do that? Here's advice from Nancy Gruver, executive director of Dads and Daughters, the author of How to Say It To Girls, and publisher and founder of New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams:
- Decide ahead of time at what age you will allow her to read which magazines.
- Read her magazines so you can converse casually (not lecture her!) about them.
- Look critically at the adult magazines you read. Do they make you judge your own body? Do they make you crave certain clothes, cars, hair products, etc?
- Ask your daughter to identify her favorite article and ad in each issue. Listen for her underlying emotional need and think about other ways you can help her meet it. Is she concerned about her body? Is she worried about fitting in?
- Ask her what she thinks is real and unreal in each issue. Are the celebrity photographs altered? Do the models look like girls she knows? Does the magazine address everything teen girls are thinking of?
- Ask her what effect she thinks an article or ad is trying to have on readers.
- Express your opinions (after listening to hers) about the articles and ads.
- Provide her with alternatives like New Moon and Teen Voices, even if she doesn’t ask for them. It’s like stocking the kitchen with healthy snacks, even if she begs only for chips and soda.
- Take old magazines and cut out images and words with her to create articles and ads with respectful, nurturing messages. Compare them to the usual fare.
- Most important, keep the communication lines open and trust that as she matures and gains self-confidence, with your support, she’ll find shallow magazines less interesting.
To read the complete Associated Press article about the study, click here.