Read, Watch, Check Out

I've been stockpiling some links definitely worth checking out...

Double standards turn up at, yup, the dry cleaners
NEW YORK REGION | February 05, 2009
At the Cleaners, One Woman Seeks Gender Equality
By CARA BUCKLEY
Women's shirts often cost much more to launder than men's, even if they are smaller and made of the same cloth. Janet Floyd is out to change that.


Where media, pharmaceuticals, and women's health intersect (and I love that this is in the Business section, and not Fashion or Lifestyle for once!)
BUSINESS | February 11, 2009
Advertising: A Birth Control Pill That Promised Too Much
By NATASHA SINGER
As part of a settlement, Bayer is running ads that clarify the side benefits of its birth control drug, Yaz. Regulators say earlier ads played down the risks.


Very much in line with articles and books written by my contemporaries on the pressure on girls and women to be perfect...
According to new research at UC Berkeley, Pressure to be a supergirl is causing teen mental health crisis

*I'm excited to say that more on this topic will be coming up as well: An interview with Liz Funk, author of Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Lives of Overachieveing Girls, will be posted here during her virtual book tour March 12th.

Weight bias videos by the Rudd Center

The Rudd Center has recently released videos on YouTube about weight bias at home, school, and in health care. Check out the preview trailer, or watch the full length weight bias in youth full video and the weight bias in health care full video.

When watching the preview, I was really struck by just how confused we are about weight and health. While we campaign for tolerance of people of all sizes, shapes, genders, races, and ethnicities and encourage youth to love themselves as they are, we also campaign for help against obesity as a medical problem that causes many other health issues, in a way demonizing obesity (and its "hosts") even more.

How can we look out for our actual health without becoming wrapped up in how we look and how we are treated because of our appearance? How can we expand our definitions of beauty to include the myriad types of people that there are, while still promoting health?

I'm glad that these videos address the often unacknowledged weight bias that hurts many children and adults - even in an ideal world where everyone eats and lives healthfully, we hopefully will still be able to revel in our diversity.