Closed petition A Media Social Responsibility Pot for eating disorders and body image education

Closed on 3 April 2014

Children and young people are constantly barraged by the media to achieve, what the media asserts to be, the perfect body.

This pressure influences many children and young people to form negative feelings of themselves which leads to the development of low self-esteem and adoption of harmful practices, such as restrictive eating and excessive exercise regimes.

It is known that interference with the development of one's self esteem can lead to the onset of psychological problems, including eating disorders - which can be debilitating and also fatal.

In 2012, the All-Party Parliamentary Campaign on Body Image recommended compulsory lessons in body image and self-esteem within all schools.

This petition wishes to strengthen the recommendations and calls upon the Government to explore the implementation of a media social responsibility pot, to which the media organisations make a contribution to pay for essential body image education and eating disorder awareness.