This past week we discussed marketing and advertising in class, and to my surprise it was the most heated discussion we have had as a class. I was a marketing major for a solid semester before I realized how soulless the whole field is, so I got out of it as fast as I could. I'm glad I left it, and I find it funny to think that i tried involving myself in a field that purposefully made me unhappy for so many years.
I have had issues with body image since I was around 10. I've always been chubbier, and I've used food as a means to cope with social issues throughout my entire life. I have other family members who also use food to fill voids, and I have had a front row seat to seeing how they've hurt themselves. Personally, I've had issues binge eating because I've felt in a state of arrested development socially. People are terrible and fickle, but there's always food around in order to make me feel better about not measuring up, and always being excluded, or the 5th choice if I'm included. In recent times, I've began dieting and trying to be more health conscious and I've cut off the people in my life that weren't good to me. I hold my own personal responsibilities for the poor choice I've made in regards to my weight, however the blame does not fall solely on my shoulders, as a viscous cycle of advertising helped to exacerbate the issue I've had. Both food advertisements and the depiction of ideal bodies in clothing advertisement continued to make me feel worse about where I found myself. Food advertisements made it seem that if i ate their product, I would feel better with myself, while the clothing companies were showing a hyper-idealized version of a boy that I was moving further and further away from.While the situation I found myself in wasn't the direct fault of the advertising, it certainly didn't help.
So how does this relate to the kids I'll be teaching in a couple years?
Well, I had all these issues from age 10 onward, and I had 0 exposure to social media or even the means to access social media until around 14. This means the kids that I'll be teaching will be even worse off about their bodies than how I felt when I was growing up. Meaning that it's more important that when I start teaching I don't add to the issues that's going to be present.
In total, Don't be a dick to kids
There's no room for ego when people are struggling as is.