**Things you see in magazines and on television are often unattainable or

unrealistic.**

The diet industry in America is worth about $60,000,000,000

90% of women are unhappy with their appearance in some way

over 75% of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change your bodily appearance, by diet, exercise or cosmetic surgery.

70 per cent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight

Twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 percent less than the average woman; but today’s models weigh 23 percent less.

women’s magazines have ten times more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do

A computer model of Barbie’s proportions found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually die from malnutrition.

**only 1%of girls aged 3 to 10 years old do not own a Barbie doll

With a 39” bust, 18” waist, 33” thighs and a size 3 shoe, if she was a real woman, she wouldn’t be able to walk upright - she would have to walk on all fours!

Since 1959, Mattel has created over 1 billion outfits for Barbie and 1 billion shoes, making Mattel one of the biggest clothing manufacturers in the world.

In Madrid, one of the world’s biggest fashion capitals, ultra-thin models were banned from the runway in 2006

For several years a magazine in Quebec Coup de Pouce has consistently included full-sized women in their fashion pages and pledged not to touch up photos

1. The diet business: Banking on failure. (BBC News World Edition, Feb 5 2003). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2725943.stm

  2. The Canadian Women’s Health Network (Body Image

and the Media). http://www.cwhn.ca/node/40776  3. Barbie boots up. (Time, Nov 11 1996).

http://www.time.com

4. A Report on Mental Illness in Canada. (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2002).

5. Women laserized to standardize dress sizes. (CNN.com, Feb 11 2008).