Over the last three decades, according to the United States' Center for Disease Control, obesity rates in America have tripled in children between the ages of 6 to 11 and adolescents age 12 to 19. Today, nearly one in three children is overweight or obese. Further complicating the issue, girls today are bombarded with images in media and fashion promoting ultra thinness as an ideal that have a negative influence on body image and are linked to eating disorders among other unhealthy habits.

The Girl Scout Research Institute's latest survey, Beauty Redefined: Girls and Body Image (2010), demonstrates that many girls consider the body image sold by the fashion industry unrealistic, creating an unattainable model of beauty:

• Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed say the fashion industry (89 percent) and/or the media (88 percent) place a lot of pressure on them to be thin.
• However, despite the criticism of this industry, 3 out of 4 girls say that fashion is "really important" to them. Girls still feel intense pressure from the media to have an 'ideal' body type. When they do not measure up to these unrealistic beauty standards, their self-esteem, body image, and physical health can be significantly damaged.

Girls still feel intense pressure from the media to have an 'ideal' body type. When they do not measure up to these unrealistic beauty standards, their self-esteem, body image, and physical health can be significantly damaged.

What are some things you have done to encourage young women and girls to see themselves and their bodies positively? Is it possible to change the way the media portrays women in film, television and editorial? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

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"Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences."

She continues:

Within days of the Haitian earthquake, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of photographs with captions that kept deploying the word “looting.” One was of a man lying face down on the ground with this caption: “A Haitian police officer ties up a suspected looter who was carrying a bag of evaporated milk.” The man’s sweaty face looks up at the camera, beseeching, anguished.

Read more »

The United States abolished slavery in 1865. Now, every country in the world has outlawed the practice. But you’d be mistaken to think that humankind had left the “peculiar institution” in its past. Slavery endures. And not just in isolated incidents or far-flung corners of the globe. Today, it happens as ecumenically as it did in the Old Testament, which is to say often and everywhere.

Good Magzine has the facts and a primer for you.

At the top of the list is Burma where Burmese blogger Maung Thura is serving a 59-year prison sentence for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis last year.

“Governments are quickly learning how to turn technology against bloggers by censoring and filtering the Internet, restricting online access and mining personal data," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "When all else fails, the authorities simply jail a few bloggers to intimidate the rest of the online community into silence or self-censorship.”

In 2008, more bloggers were imprisoned than any other category of journalist, surpassing print and broadcast journalists for the first time.

Following Burma on CPJ’s list are Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan and Egypt.

On the Social Edge blog, Americans for Informed Democracy founder Seth Green weighed in by taking a look at Obama's advances in the realm of social entrepreneurship.

Obama has committed to organizing an Office of Social Innovation, and he has just signed a Serve America Act that includes a Social Innovation Fund to seed new social enterprises and expand existing ones. He has also put aside tens of billions of dollars for green initiatives that will undoubtedly cultivate more promising social ventures. Perhaps most of all, he has used his bully pulpit to highlight the stories of social entrepreneurs, inspiring young people to follow a new model for making a difference.

But is there more that needs to be done? Read Seth's thoughts on the next 100 days and beyond.

What do you see when you look at the following photo?

(Click photo to enlarge)

On the 16 December 2008 edition of her News & Notes show, Farai Chideya spoke with George Davis, president of Davis Broadband Group, an international media and entertainment consultancy, and Cheryl Grills, chair of the psychology department at Loyola Marymount University about their perceptions of how African Americans are received while traveling in Mumbai and on the African continent.

A timely topic for me, considering my rude awakening during a recent trip to Paris.  It was during that trip that I realized many people outside of the United States do not discern between black Americans and white Americans.

Having worked at an international NGO for the past three years, I have quickly learned that for most people not from the United States, there is only one America and everyone from this country is simply American.

But for those of us who have spent lifetimes in this country, we can quickly debunk that myth.

Although our new President-elect built his campaign on the basis that there is not a "white America or a black America", but only the "United States of America", I think we (or "us'es" as I like to loving refer to those of us with darker skin living in America) know this is merely something we hope to achieve, rather than something that already exists.

The disparity between race in this country is something so commonplace, it has become accepted and uncontested by many - young and old.

Maybe the rest of the world will catch up with us one day in this realization.

What do you think?

Listen to the News & Notes.

When you go to work, do you change how you talk to people and present yourself?

Leave your answers in the comments.  I'll post the best responses for continued discussion next week.

Reposted from NPR's News & Notes with Farai Chideya.