Last week I was talking to my mother who is a teaching assistant at a local elementary school back home. She started telling me about a group of fifth grade girls, about ten in all, who made a pact to not eat lunch at school because they were trying to diet. These girls, according to my mother, were very skinny and by no means needed to lose weight. It lasted about a week before the school stepped in and called the girl’s parents. After the families got involved the girls began bringing their lunches to schools. Again I pose the question how young is too young for the youth, especially young girls, to want to diet? What is this saying about the way society and the media is portraying the ideal body image and the impressions that are being left in young childrens’ minds?
Side Note: At this very same school there was a fifth grade girl who had been married off to an older man, by her Latino family, and had a baby. In cases such as this that are occuring in our country should the government step in? Or should the family be allowed to carry on their centuries old practices?
-Jessica Wagoner