Background: Global advertising, mass media conglomerates, beauty, fashion and cosmetic surgery industries are changing how people around the world define beauty and see themselves. The impact of a commercial culture,targeting children, women and men,thrives on insecurity and self-loathing to promote consumerism, contributing to the risk for eating disorders or disordered eating.
Objectives: • Attendees will be able to identify three mediums through which the commercial culture exploits insecurity in consumers. • Attendees will be able to explain the relationship between the content of news broadcasts and corporate advertising. • Attendees will be able to list 3 ways in which the risk factors for the development of an eating disorder are affected by the media’s message that a “perfect body” is attainable.
This documentary examines how global advertising firms, mass media conglomerates, and the beauty, fashion and cosmetic surgery industries are changing the way people around the world define beauty and see themselves. These industries saturate our lives with narrow, Westernized consumer-driven images of beauty that show little to no respect for biological realities or cultural differences. Featuring interviews with prominent sociologists, politicians, magazine editors, scientist and activists in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, The Ilusionists explores the impact of a commercial culture, targeting children, women and men throughout the world, that thrives on the creation and exploitation of insecurity and self-loathing to promote consumerism. These effects contribute to the risk factors for the development of an eating disorder or disordered eating. A Question and Answer panel led by two eating disorder experts will follow the showing of the film.
TIMELINE:
Overview and history of the documentary in terlation to body image and eating disorders.....10 minutes
Showing of the documentary........................................................................................52 minutes
Commentary by panel experts and Question & Answer period............................................28 minutes
This documentary examines how global advertising firms, mass media conglomerates, and the beauty, fashion and cosmetic surgery industries are changing the way people around the world define beauty and see themselves. These industries saturate our lives with narrow, Westernized consumer-driven images of beauty that show little to no respect for biological realities or cultural differences. Featuring interviews with prominent sociologists, politicians, magazine editors, scientist and activists in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, The Ilusionists explores the impact of a commercial culture, targeting children, women and men throughout the world, that thrives on the creation and exploitation of insecurity and self-loathing to promote consumerism. These effects contribute to the risk factors for the development of an eating disorder or disordered eating. A Question and Answer panel led by two eating disorder experts will follow the showing of the film.
Adrienne Ressler, an ED and body image specialist, is VP of Professional Development, The Renfrew Center Foundation, and past-president/Fellow of iaedp. With extensive training in gestalt therapy, psychodrama, bio-energetic analysis and Alexander Technique, her work is published in The International Journal of Fertility and Women’s Medicine, Social Work Today, and the Journal of the International Spa Association. She has contributed chapters for 2 ED textbooks and an entry, Experiential and Somatopsychic Approaches to Body Image Change, in the first Encyclopedia of Body Image and Human Appearance. Adrienne is Co-chairperson of the AED Somatic Therapies Special Interest Group.
A Founder and Adviser of the National Eating Disorders Association and Founding Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, Maine is author of: Pursuing Perfection: Eating Disorders, Body Myths, and Women at Midlife and Beyond; Treatment of Eating Disorders: Bridging the Research- Practice Gap; Effective Clinical Practice in the Treatment of Eating Disorders; The Body Myth; Father Hunger; and Body Wars. The recipient of The Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention, and of the NEDA Lifetime Achievement Award, and 2016 Honoree of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, she practices in West Hartford, CT.
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Jancey Wickstrom, AM, LCSW
Jancey Wickstrom, AM, LCSW is the Site Director at The Renfrew Center of Chicago. She has worked in residential, partial, and outpatient eating disorder treatment settings. Ms. Wickstrom is intensively trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). She contributed a chapter titled ‘Healing Self Inflicted Violence in Adolescents with Eating Disorders’ in the book Treatment of Eating Disorders: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice. Ms. Wickstrom is also an adjunct lecturer at The University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration.
