Teen Body Image

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question on the subject of teen body image.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On 14 October that the minister advised the council, in an answer to a question without notice, that:

The state government is inviting teenage girls to join creative workshops aimed at exploring ways to boost self-esteem and develop positive body image. Their ideas will culminate in an online campaign to be launched next April.

Later in the answer the minister said:

While girls aged 13 to 18 will help develop the campaign, the target audience will be even younger. Messages received when a girl is between seven and 12 are, I understand, also very important to the development of a very positive body image as she becomes a teenager. Utilising teenage girls will help us to create relevant messages, because we will be asking the older girls to help create messages that they wish they had heard when they were younger. We will then ask parents and older sisters to share this campaign with younger girls.

Further on the minister said:

This is designed to be an organic, creative process with the girls deciding the best methods to share their message.

I am advised that, while encouraging young women to develop a case against negative body image messages has been shown to reduce their body dissatisfaction, I am aware that passive messaging to younger children can, in practice, be counter-productive. I ask the minister:

1. What evidence base supports the value of older teens developing mobile apps, music videos, slideshows or any other form of communication to educate and inform younger teens on body image?

2. Is the Office for Women collaborating with relevant expertise as they develop the teen body image project?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:52): I thank the honourable member for his question. Indeed, body image, particularly for young girls and women, is extremely important. We know that poor body image can lead to all sorts of illnesses, distress and anxiety, in young women in particular. We know that this is also an issue for young men, but it is been found to be particularly evident in young girls and women.

With the program I outlined previously, which is about building self-image in young women, some funding has been made available to involve workshops that include a group of young women from the age of, I think, 13 to 18 (as the honourable member outlined) to work with a group of girls aged somewhere between seven and 12 to create messages that are relevant to their particular demographic. We have based this study on a similar project in the United States that was found to be extremely successful and very popular amongst young women.

It is important that we are able to communicate these messages in ways that resonate with young people, and I have to say that it is extremely difficult for older, more mature people to craft messages that fit in with modern day popular culture and modern terminology and that appeal to young people.

So, the advice that we received was to use workshops involving, obviously, the supervision of older people but mainly involving younger people to help craft relevant messages. As I said, we have based it on a project in the US that was found to be extremely successful, and we will certainly be evaluating this project to see the extent of the positive outcomes and looking to see whether this is worthwhile for future programs as well.