The Shirley Temple!

    For my final project I decided to create a magazine based off of the after school club that I host. I host a teen sexual health club, and I talk to the girls about sex, diet, mental health, boy problems, and I help them with life problems.The thought first came to me when I thought about body image. In media the only thing that makes it to the billboard half the time is a half naked woman who is no heavier than 110lbs. Her hair is long and skin is glowing and flawless. I also noticed that the top magazines such as, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and even Seventeen magazine which is designed for teenagers. Do not showcase encouraging, and positive influence on loving yourself. The only thing that they focus on was fixing yourself. That something is obviously wrong with you because you do not look like the woman on this cover. This bothered me. It made me noticed that although I speak to my girls every week about loving who they are for what they are, and learning how to diet or just being healthy, they still are going to be tempted and conflicted about how they look. Noticing this I explained my idea of a magazine to them.
They loved it! They agreed with me on my idea of creating a magazine that has nothing to do with fixing yourself, but encouraging healthy eating, making it fun, but also giving awareness too the world around us. After a week of planning and making plans with the principle we were all set to being it. It wasn't until a week later did my boss decide that she did not want to really help me do this project with them, and pull the resources I thought I had in order to print and publish this zine. The girls were ready to give up until I basically said screw it, we are going to do this even if its in black and white with slim to little graphics. We were going to get our word out there. So we went back to work. I made arrangements with the teachers so we can put the zines outside of the classroom like a newspaper for students to read whenever they please. We also handed them out during the annual Christmas show, and are planning on handing them out during parent teacher conferences. This wasn't enough to the girls. So we all went to planned parenthood, got permission to leave the magazines there, and now are hopefully being seen by people outside of the school. The importance of awareness for body health and sexual health is extremely needed. I am hoping that this magazine can at least get the teens curious about it, and they at least Google it.

WORKS CITED:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dangerous-diet-trend-cotton-ball-diet/story?id=20942888
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-ridiculous-fad-diets.php