Photo: Alex Tehrani

I have a friend named Carolyn who lives in the hospital. Carolyn is 12 years old. She prefers the white-walled rooms to her home, because there she doesn’t have to go hungry.

At home, she doesn’t let herself eat. Food is a sweet-talking demon that haunts her mind and threatens her life. Her stomach rumbles 24 hours a day, a comforting lullaby to her starved brain. She sees World Vision commercials and remarks, “Those children are so lucky. They don’t have to eat.”

How twisted have we become? Jealous over bloated African children who would do anything for a crust of bread, while we’re regurgitating entire loaves? Something has to change.

CosmoGIRL!, Teen Vogue, YM, Seventeen … piles of wasted trees trashing up the perspectives of today’s North American children. Skinny models decorate the pages, bare bones jagged and useless, faces gaunt with disillusionment and hunger, ribs exposed for the world to count.

We’ve been suckered into a disgusting cycle: we pile on the pounds from chocolate bars and potato chips, drive through McDonald’s for a greasy heart-stopper, and top it all off with a Slurpee from 7-Eleven. Later, we race the treadmill for an hour, chasing away our guilt, only to plop in front of the television to gorge on celebratory ice cream and commercials.

Then there are those who veer to the other side of the health-highway: organic fruits and vegetables, extra lean beef, lite cheese, no-fat yogurt, no-calorie sodas, anti-oxidant tomatoes, polyunsaturated margarines, green teas, flourless bread and high doses of Omega 3, topped off with some salty Styrofoam snacks known as Rice Cakes.

What are we teaching our children? To choose between one of two extremes? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned balance?

Cut the cable cord, spend the summer on a farm, and work up an appetite growing your own food. Fill your offspring with nutrients and values that will strengthen their bones and nurture their minds.

Then maybe instead of being jealous of starving children overseas, this generation will weep in compassion for the unnecessary wealth we regurgitate every day.

_Emily Wierenga

COMMENTS:

These teen magazines are also the problem. Girls who doesn't read them have higher self esteem.
kendall

I did a research paper on this at school, and you are all pretty much right. The manifold of our wicked society with its extremely narrow acceptance of beauty does play a big role in all of this, but so do our actions and also medical problems that are hard to treat. Believe it or not, the diet industry must be blamed too! It's a proven fact: 98% of diets don't work. And yet, the diet industry is making more money than possibly EVERYONE! It's just disgusting.
Mia

Sorry I put this here, but there's nowhere else. Why does AdBusters have an article on their fight to be on television? I thought you were against television. Why does AdBusters charge $127 for teachers to buy a packet of instruction for their classrooms? Aren't you for getting information out without consumerism taking over? Why does it seem like Adbusters is simply another money happy company that does not practice what it preaches?
Concerned

To the person that said that getting healthy food is too expensive that is untrue. BUYING healthy food is inexpensive. Growing it yourself is not. Buy one veggie, get the seeds, and plant them. All you have is a balcony or a window? Use a window box to plant.
bubba

first of all, to the first comment under concerned. you're a complete idiot...adbusters charges for their productions BECAUSE THE SHIT AINT FREE TO PRODUCE...second of all, if all the idiotic tranced out blobs are stuck infront of the tv, getting air time is a good way to get the message to them. your just pissed because you want shit for free, well the world doesn't work like that...we all have bills to pay.
casey jlalonde

I think it has a lot to do with how women are treated in this culture. They are supposed to be pretty, obedient dolls just so they can get other's approval. They are not supposed to be strong, independent, free thinkers.
G

LOL, talking IS action.
Nahimana

There was never such a thing as 'good ole fashioned balance'. Don't get nostalgic for a world that never was! 'Balance' is only a notion now because it's achievable. For the vast majority of humans in the world now and historically, 'balance' is the result of thwarted greed. Constant struggle creates the illusion of harmony; gazelles and lionesses don't do what they do to maintain Elton's Circle of Life.
Adam

Look at the picture! I mean, some of these girls may have been improperly fed as they grew up, and some of them may have a medical condition which makes them physically the way they are. I think the picture is a poignant commentary on how American society treats problems, which is with fixalls. From the very beginning there have been individuals looking to make a quick buck by selling cureall tonics, and there have always been a large number of suckers who are willing to shell out their hard earned sustenance money in hope of being cured. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there are no easy, magic solutions to our problems. A health condition is a serious matter that deserves serious attention. If you're sick then go to the doctor! Come up with a plan of how you can live a healthy life despite your abnormalities! Improper nutrition is also serious and can have negligible effects on one's body. If you haven't been eating well and/or haven't been active enough then try to find a way to motivate yourself, find a friend to keep you accountable, and come up with a 1, 2, or five year plan! These things won't fix themselves, and neither will some scheme slickly marketed by some schmuck! We're in a broken world, but please... hang onto hope! God Bless.
Hendrik Vlaar

Talking about food, i just got in mind some Nopalitos and Tortillas, wich have been served in the mexican cuisine for more than 900 hundred years and still resist to be in every mexican and guatemalas table, but you guys up there with such a short and depredatory style of life are getting very fat and every day u get less options to eat, all the international food is reduced to a Macburrito, Macgyro, Macgulash, Macfries, with extra and saturated ingredients Blood and Oil.
ErendiradeTlalpan

Yes, the CosmoGirls and TeenVogues of our time teaches children that being skinny is beautiful. But then Dove comes out with a campaign showing women with different body shapes, and many people mostly men have said crude things. Here are some examples: FAT ISN'T GLAMOROUS, SELLING OBESITY BY THE POUND, THEY'RE DISGUSTING, FAT COWS, The only time I want to see a thigh that big is in a bucket with bread crumbs on it. It's no surprise why children as young as 12 have these feelings about thinness. Living on a farm and growing your own vegetables won't solve this culture's REAL problem: the perception of beauty.
Stephanie

Eating healthy everyday without that snuck in chocolate bar or chocolate chip cookie? Thats almost impossible.
Yup

I think the problem also lies in the price difference between natural produce and processed. As a teacher in an inner city school I have noticed that overall the majority of the students are heavier than children in wealthier surrounding suburbs. 98% of the students in the school live below poverty level and families cannot afford to feed their children healthy food because it is too expensive. It is very difficult to see children this young have these types of health problems because they were born into this lifestyle. I am hopeful but questioning its reality that our society is capable of providing people with the knowledge and resources to move themselves forward.
upon a smile

I decided to be vegan not because of love for animals or wanting to lose weight, but because it is a lifestyle that teaches me not to be gluttonous. I think that moderation is something we need to be educated about. There are plenty of healthy foods out there that are convenient and cheap. We just need to learn to be less lazy and more disciplined in our eating habits. The food industry is not our friend; it is a profit-seeking enterprise that will not hold our hands and tell us how to eat properly. There's a reason why junk food is not illegal in North America.
Alex B

there is such a thing called ballence, there's good and then there's evil, right? besides it could be evolution in action! haha oh well i dont know what to say. if kids want to feel that way and no get help, its up to them. the power of suggestion is strong, you need the will power and support to make your goals a reality. also these thigs take time. all of the evils in this world media,drug companise, health companise, all working together to control, if we were communist we may have a leader set a limit on what we should eat, but America likes to be individualist instead of collectivst. Also what G said was funny.
Maze

I think it has to do with a multimillion dollar diet/fashion industry that focuses more on money making than actually improving health. All this arguing of weight and food frankly is just as mentally unhealthy as it is bodily. Thinness doesn't guarentee health nor beauty.
JDubsFA

Dude...it would be awesome to go spend a summer on the farm. But some of us have to work!
Kim

I don't know anymore. this is like saying its bad to be fat or healthy F%k man i guess everything is bad. I agree that the food we eat is crap but thats what we are given becasue a lot of people are to dumb or busy writing articles that just repeat the same thing over and over. Action is our only hope now. I have different friends and some are fat some are skiny i like them each for what they are some of them have medical conditions others dont they just have fast metabolism and so on...What im trying to say is not to pass judgment on people so much just because you see a skinny person dont asume they are anarexic and vise versa just talk to people and be happy :
LOL

nicely done. I first found it a little shocking that this was a 12 year old talking... but I do recall girls in grade 5 reading 17... they were not 17.. I know, strange eh? I agree, the idea that we can binge and purge lacks sustainability in all respects.
Ian B

food is a drug. i know. my husband is vietnamese and he doesn't like cheese because he didn't eat it for the first 18 years of his life. our 2 year old son chooses RICE and BROCCOLI over anything else! i am learning to eat more asian foods and am much happier/healthier. food is fuel.
elizabeth tran

I totally agree with your 5th paragraph. I am guilty of it. PS. YM Magazine has been out circulation for years.
College Girl

the real problem is sin. if the people who run the beauty/health industries weren't zealously chasing after money to enlarge their own kingdoms with, and instead cared for God's people and used the gifts He gives to better man's overall well being, then that would solve some problems. if the consumers - us - weren't so zealously pursuing attention and vain praise for ourselves, and in so doing gorge then purge and live lives of extreme excess, that would solve some problems. if instead of living excessively, we lived modestly, eating only what we could finish, buying only what we needed, then instead of selfishly gorging on the blessings God has given us, or allowed for us to obtain, then we actually might live what He commanded. we might not let blessings terminate on ourselves, and instead, begin to bring restoration to this dark, broken, oppressed world through Christ. the real problem isn't the industry. its not the magazines. it's the hearts of the humans behind the industry, behind the magazines, behind the checkout counter.
the real problem

those stupid models in those stupid magazines, they make tons of cash just for standing around in pretty clothes! and do they do something generous with that money, like donating some of it? no, most of them just act like spoiled 8yearolds and throw cell phones and spit on people. i pray for a day when a harsh, giant wind blows across the continent and sweeps up those anorexic bimbos for good!
frustrated

We can blame all the mediums we want, however we should start taking responsibility for our own actions.
kOyAa

your perception of models is rather narrowed and dated. i know you are referring to naomi who was a supermodel. frankly, supermodel decade is over. most models don't make as much as you think. only a few very outstanding ones make the kind of money you seems to refer to. a lot of times they dont even get paid for photoshoots. it's rather harsh of you to call them anorexic bimbos when it doesnt seem like you know any working models. back to the topic. there really isnt what has our society come to... because in general, it's the same cycle over and over again. just little details are different like our perception of beauty or standard on health and food. for hundreds of years, for most middle class people, they didnt exactly have 'good old balance'. they ate what they can get and what they got wasnt exactly a balanced meal with all 7 food groups haha. also, it's not ALL of magazine publication and other media form's fault for girls falling into whatever zone they fall into. i read teen vogue when i was a teen but didnt feel like i had to do this and that to be this or that. it has to do with the mindset of the kids. what we so considers the ad influences are gonna be here in one form or another. we destroy one form and it will come up again in another form. doing this doesnt really make the problem go away. but having a good mindset can in a way, block out the paths that generally lead to a trapped depression or obsession. the things itself is not bad in it's nature, it's us that is labeling these things as ad.
to frustrated

i would love the answer to bubba's question. i've thought about that a good number of times.
confused

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