There are two subjects I want to touch upon today. Two things I have learned about today that infuriate me to my inner most core. And the reason I am announcing it is to bring awareness to it and not stay silent to it.
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The first thing I stumbled upon today is a children's book released in March of 2011. It is called, Maggie Goes on a Diet by Paul M. Kramer. The title alone caught my eye. I wondered how a book like this could actually end? Happy? Sad?
So, I began the research. I wanted to find out more about this book. It claims to promote a healthier image for 6-12 year old girls to follow and look up to.
Maggie is a 14-year old girl who is overweight. She is teased by other peers at school. So she goes on a 'diet'. She eats oat meal and a sandwich. She weighs herself. And soon enough she is thin, happy, successful and popular. She becomes a star soccer player, and everyone loves her.
No where in all the descriptions I read on this book had any kind of healthy promotion for young girls to look to! What I got from this book as a 21 year old full grown adult, is that if you are heavy in weight you are ugly, unsuccessful, unimportant, and can't accomplish your dreams. I can't imagine how this would effect the minds of developing little girls!
A recent study has shown that eating disorders in children under 12 years old have gone up 119% in 2000-2011. That is a large percentage! What are we teaching our young girls? What are we modeling?
Author, Kramer, says that this book was meant to encourage children to eat healthier. And when asked in an interview over the book, "Why didn't you just name the book, 'Maggie Gets Healthy'?" His response was, "Well, if someone asked you what your daily diet consists of, you think of the foods you do eat. Society has skewed the definition of diet." However, I have a hard time believing his response...going on a diet, and what your diet consists of are two completely different things.
This definitely enrages me! If you have read my other posts you would know that I had dealt with an eating disorder. So many people do not understand it and all the things that can so easily trigger one. I know the cause is not completely discovered as to why certain people develop eating disorders and others don't, but I know that putting things, such as this book, on to such an easily accessible shelf for young, very influential girls, is a good start to begin triggering girls more susceptible to developing eating disorders.
Second thing I stumbled upon was a Facebook invite I received from a precious friend. The invite is title
Stop Kony.
Joseph Kony is a black male in his late forties born in Uganda. He claims to be a christian. (That is the part that frustrates me) He is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda (LRA). He claims that the Lord tells him to do the things he does.
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Kony's LRA has kidnapped approximately 20,000 children for use as fighters or sex slaves. As part of their initiation, these children are often required to kill their own parents, so they won't have any homes to return to.
Once the children are kidnapped they are used as pack-mules and made to carry equipment and supplies until they are too weak to walk, and then they are killed or they are simply left to die.
Kidnapped boys are served as decoys and sent to the front lines--unarmed--whenever the Ugandan Army engages the LRA. And the kidnapped girls, if attractive, become the wives of the LRA men. (Kony is estimated to have 60 wives.)
If the kidnapped children become troublesome, they are all tortured the same by having their noses, ears or lips cut off and made to eat their own flesh!
Here is the good news!
You can make a difference. You see, the man in the above picture, he is the one who set into motion the Joseph Kony 2012 campaign. The goal is to make Kony famous. Not to make him a celebrity, but to make his name known to bring him to arrest.
The government has already began a search for him with the Uganda Military. But if we, as the society, do not continue pressing the issue and awareness of the LRA, finding Kony will become harder, and harder. In order for Kony to be arrested this year, the Uganda Military has to find him. And in order for the Military to find him they need the technology and training to capture him in the vast jungle. That's where the American advisers come in. But in order for the American advisers to be there, the U.S government has to deploy them. They've done that.
But, if the U.S government doesn't believe that The People care about arresting Kony, then the mission will be cancelled.
And in order for the people to care...they have to know.
So, spread the word. Kony 2012.
To understand better what
Kony 2012 is, please click
here. It is a YouTube video made by the man who began this. It is powerful! You can make a difference by
spreading the name
JOSEPH KONY to everyone you know! Let's make him famously
known. Let's not let him slip through being
invisible anymore!
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