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2. Global Overview Regarding Body Images • Caucasian and African women hold significantly different definitions of beauty and perceptions of themselves. • Caucasians find beauty to be fair-skinned, thin lips, high cheek bones and sharp features. Whereas Africans find darker skin , fuller lips and bigger bodies to be beautiful. • Females comprise 95% of anorexics and 90% of bulimics worldwide. • Women that are anorexic, bulimic or obese are often determined by race, ethnicity, class and gender role orientation. • African-American women’s perception of beauty is more flexible and fluid – 64% stated they would rather be a little overweight than underweight. www. findarticles.com

3. African Perspective Regarding Body Images • Both black and white women partially base their judgments of their bodies on what men of their race desire. Black males feel more attracted towards bigger women, and white males towards thinner women. • Steven Malik Shelton states that Black people were whitewashed into believing that everything African/Black was inferior, backward and ugly, while everything Caucasian/White was superior, beautiful and desirable. • Sudanese refugee Alek Wek’s rise to fame brought a lot of controversy because of her non-European looks. Naomi Campbell states that people don’t appreciate black beauty. White girls have got basically everybody’s idea of perfection and people can’t seem to accept another kind of beauty. www.rocktrend.wordpress.com www.images.google.co.za

4. Only 32% of all main characters in children’s television are female. • The ratio of male to female characters in animation programmes, especially if the • main character is an animal, monster etc., is as disparate as 87% male to 13% • female. • Public broadcasters are even slightly more unbalanced than private channels! • Internationales Zentralinstitut fur das Jugend-und BildungsfernsehenIZI (Germany) • www.izi.de

5. Images in Children’s Television • 72% of all main characters in children’s television are Caucasian. • Some of the “whitest children’s television” can be found in South Africa, where 81% of all significant characters are white – while in reality only 9% of the population are white. • On Kenyan children’s television there are more Asian girls (16%) than black girls(11%) • The majority of boy’s television preferences are action, violence and dominance. The depiction of boys seems to focus on sex, drugs and alcohol, children can see racist stereotypes like “all black men are criminals”. www.izi.de

6. GLOBAL GIRL’S BODY • Slim, healthy women and girls have a waist-to-hip ratio between 0.69 and 0.80. • More than half of the cartoon characters (58%) have a value below the naturally achievable one. • The waist-to-shoulder ratio is between 0.69 and 0.80. this value applies only to 16% of cartoon characters. • Aside from these every other character falls below or is on the same level with Barbie (0.6) such as The Bratz and Kim Possible. • The presented body formulas of the animated girl character, do not represent child or young girl characters, but instead little girls bodies that have been sexualised. • www.izi.de – The Role of Gender Waist-to-hip ratios in cartoon girl characters, the area highlighted in blue shows the actual range of waist-to-hip ratios of girls and women.

7. Girl Images on Children’s Television • According to the IZI Project on “gender sensitivity in children’s TV”, they found that 2 out of 3 female characters have unreachable long legs and wasp- like waists. Girls are being continuously confronted with body shapes that they can never attain. Bloom with extremely long legs and tiny waist line. Bibi Blocksberg’s waistline decreasing in size from right to left.

8. GLOBAL BOY’S BODY • An analysis of 71 global boy and men characters shows that there is a range of male characters with V-shaped torsos. • There are boy or men characters, who are clearly overweight, who have ball-shaped bodies or who are ‘beanpoles’ as well as boys who have perfectly normal bodies. • The range of physical features are considerably wider and the number of characters who are not sexualized is high. • The dominance of unnatural body images does not only apply to girl characters. • www.izi.de – The Role of Gender Waist-to-shoulder ratios in male cartoon characters. The ratio between 0.2 and 0.4 signifies a “V-shaped form” which cannot be achieved naturally.

9. Boy Images on Children’s Television Ron Stoppable. A regular built character with a goofy sense of being. Fat Albert. Clearly overweight male character. Johnny Bravo. The ultimate V-shaped form, broad shoulders, big chest and small waist. Mr. Incredible. Muscular built body with a solid physique.

10. Change Needs to be Created • The representation of an average woman is solely based on her culture, values and norm of beauty. For example, if a girl/woman wears a Hijab in an Islamic country like Egypt, it will be viewed as the norm and seen as beautiful because the majority of the population follows Islam. • Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright whose work contrasts Western images to Nigeria a country that is rich in traditions, images and folklore. • Soyinka expresses a strong concern with defining African postcolonial identity , and he feels that the Nigerian culture of the youth is slowly disappearing due to Western Capitalism. findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QLQ/is_2008_Feb/ai_n24377645 www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/post/soyinka Comparison between the Barbie and Fulla Doll (Veiled Barbie Doll)

11. Change Needs to be Created • Barbie’s sexualized waist ratio is a misrepresentation for young girls globally – producers need to create more realistic ratios in the characters that they are producing. • Producers must first understand and integrate girls’ and boys’ diversity with regards to looks, physical appearances, ethnicity , cultural sensitivities and idiosyncrasies. • Broadcasters and producers must take these findings seriously, and they need to begin to broaden the topics and concerns of boys and girls. • All media must become more gender sensitive by questioning one’s own prejudices and society's assumptions on gender. We need to always remember that the goal of any quality children’s television is to support both boys and girls in becoming active members of the society they inhabit. Internationales Zentralinstitut fur das Jugend-und Bildungsfernsehen IZI (Germany) www.izi.de