Health
ITunes remove offensive mobile app ‘game’ for girls encouraging plastic surgery for weight loss & beauty
I could hardly believe my eyes yesterday morning. Whilst browsing my Twitter feed I came across a fairly shocking post by the Twitter account Everyday Sexism. It was asking fellow Twitter users to email and tweet iTunes in disgust at a recently launched mobile app/game aimed at young girls aged 9 years and older.
The app titled ‘Plastic Surgery… Plastic Doctor… Plastic Hospital Office for Barbie’ encouraged young girls to perform several procedures on a girl to make her more beautiful. In the app description it stated… ‘This unfortunate girl has so much extra weight that no diet can help her. In our clinic she can go through a surgery called liposuction that will make her slim and beautiful.’
The Everyday Sexism account just announced this morning via it’s Twitter feed that thanks to an overwhelming amount of retweets and emails to iTunes and GooglePlay they have now removed the apps but there are still similar ones still available.
‘Plastic Surgery for Barbara’ contains a description stating….. ‘Barbara likes to eat a lot of burgers and chocolates and once she found out that she looks ugly. She can’t make it up with this situation any additional second. And today plastic surgeon is going to make operation on her body and face in order to return cute Barbara’s look.’
According to the Bodywise , a national voluntary organisation supporting people affected by eating disorders in Ireland, the Department of Health estimates that up to 200,000 people in Ireland may be affected by various differrent types of eating disorders such as Anorexia and Bulemia. It is estimated 400 new cases emerge each year, representing 80 deaths annually.
Worldwide there is a proliferation of Thinspo or Thinspiration websites also known as Pro-Ana which specifically focuses on slim extremes and encourages and provides tips on how to loose extreme amounts of weight or maintain a weight below that recommended for healthy living. Today it is maintained that more than ever before younger and younger our children are bombarded with images from all aspects of the media promoting unattainable body-types and negative body image content.
Please go to Everday Sexism and retweet their tweet or email Apple or Google directly and let them know that this is both offensive and irresponsible and has no place being promoted to young and impressionable children.
America celebrates National Greasy Food Day. Is there no hope?
Today is National Greasy Food Day in America. How utterly depressing.
In a country where more than a third of adults are obese, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese, over 60% of women are overweight and obesity rates are on the rise with an expected 113 million people obese by 2022, this is the last type of cuisine that needs celebrating or memorialising.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence here and there. I enjoy the (very) occasional visit to the chipper just as much as the next person, but really America? The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 with the medical costs for people who are obese $1,429 higher than those of healthy weight. In 2010 every state had 20% or more of its population suffering from obesity.
In Ireland we’re not faring much better though. A recent report in The Irish Independent concluded that there are over 300,000 overweight children in Ireland and 100,000 children who are classed as obese. Ireland’s young population, children and adolescents, are amongst the heaviest and unhealthiest in Europe.
Interestingly however, the U.S. comes in at only 8th position for the Most Obese Countries in the World with several island nations of the Pacific Ocean leading the charge. Nauru, a tiny island was recently named the heaviest nation in the world by the World Health Organisation with a staggering 95% of the population regarded as Obese.
Single Mum and the City 