ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 29, 1996 TAG: 9605290053
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Forget what the mirror, mirror, on the wall tells you. Linda Ellerbee knows where we get the real skinny - and we mean skinny - on how we rate in the looks department.
Movies, magazines and television fill our heads with images of impossibly slender models and actresses. It's a fantasy world in which Roseanne is the exception, Heather Locklear the rule.
The barrage is distressing enough for adults unable to toe the diet line. For impressionable youngsters, experts warn, it can help foster physical and emotional problems.
That's where Ellerbee, journalist and maybe a kid's best TV friend, comes in.
``Nick News Special Edition: The Body Trap,'' airing 8 p.m. tonight on the Nickelodeon cable channel, aims to help children understand how their feelings about body image are created and how to see their own value outside of physical terms.
Besides weight, the program touches on the problems short boys face and racial differences in the perception of beauty.
``Body Trap'' is from Ellerbee's Lucky Duck Productions, which creates the weekly ``Nick News'' program along with other projects that take children and their needs seriously.
For ``Body Trap,'' Ellerbee is joined by actress-comedian Rosie O'Donnell, psychologist James Rosen and a group of really nifty kids for a children's version of a round-table discussion; filmed segments also are featured.
The subject clearly is more than skin deep.
``We're talking about people mistaking how they look for who they are, for what they're worth,'' Ellerbee said from her New York office.
The program was prompted, she explained, by a plaintive letter she received from Angela, a 10-year-old.
``She said she weighed about 10 pounds more than most of her friends and she hated herself,'' Ellerbee said. ``I was reading this and I thought, `Haven't we come any farther than this? Gee, in the '70s weren't we going to fix all this?'
``And obviously we haven't,'' she said. ``And I thought, damn, we didn't fix it for us. We didn't fix it for our daughters. Either these kids gotta change the rules, or they're not gonna get changed.''
Angela is not alone in her distress.
Research shows that younger and younger children are becoming preoccupied with their weight, according to Marian Fitzgibbon, director of the eating disorders program at Northwestern University Medical School in Evanston, Ill.
Girls as young as 8 years of age are afflicted with fat fears, which may turn into unhealthy behavior like bulimia in later years, Fitzgibbon said.
Obviously, peer pressure is a factor. Children on ``Body Trap'' speak openly about being ridiculed for even slight pudginess.
But Ellerbee is convinced the media bear a significant responsibility, and she points to a research study cited in ``Body Trap'' as proof.
The study found a sharp difference in how black girls and white girls define beauty. The black youngsters cite characteristics like intelligence and honesty; whites speak in purely physical terms of body shape and looks.
``The implication is overwhelming,'' said Ellerbee. ``If you pick up magazines, how many black girls do you see as compared to white girls? That tells you there's a direct correlation between what you see and what you think about yourself.''
It was important the show include O'Donnell, who's managed to find happiness and even Hollywood success despite being plump, said Ellerbee.
``I think she has a pretty healthy view. She was homecoming queen, she was prom queen, and she was overweight. She can look at these kids and say `I feel OK about myself.'''
Ellerbee advises her young audience to make a ritual of looking in the mirror and saying, ``I like what I see. I like me.'' The children on ``Body Trap'' offer some impressive advice of their own:
- Angela: ``What you think about yourself is the only thing you should believe in.''
- Lisa: ``You shouldn't only look at the person on the outside. You should look inside of them. You should see how the personality is and how they treat other people.''
- Jordan: ``I'm 9 years old. I'm fine as I am and I don't mind being short.
- Darren: ``I don't think it's all the media's fault, because people have their own minds. The media just puts it in front of you.''
From the mouths of babes ...
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB