Baby with 6 legs stressed to survive

The boy had a premature conjoined twin, which resulted in the additional limbs, according to the Institute’s director, Jamal Raza. One of the babies is not fully developed, generous the present physical structure to the baby.

The child was born previous week in Sukkur, a city in southeastern Pakistan. His father is currently seeking help from charities and the Pakistani government, since he said he can’t afford to travel to Karachi to see his son, and he cannot afford the baby’s surgery. According to Raza, the Institute is brainstorming options for surgery and is allowing for getting aide from foreign experts.

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Killing Us Softly 4 :Advertising's Image of Women

      In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes - images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne's groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence.

 

Sections: Introduction | Ads Everywhere | A Constructed Beauty | Objectification | Judged by Looks Alone | Thinness | Dieting | Eating & Morality | Global Impact | Infantilization & Powerlessness | Advertising & Sex | Experienced Virgins | Consumerism & Sexualizing Products | Masculinity | Violence | What to do?

Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. is internationally recognized for her groundbreaking work on the image of women in advertising and for her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising. In the late 1960s she began her exploration of the connection between advertising and several public health issues, including violence against women, eating disorders, and addiction, and launched a movement to promote media literacy as a way to prevent these problems. A radical and original idea at the time, this approach is now mainstream and an integral part of most prevention programs. Her films, lectures and television appearances have been seen by millions of people throughout the world. Kilbourne was named by The New York Times Magazine as one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses. She is the creator of the renowned Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women film series and the author of the award-winning book Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel and co-author of So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids.

Jean Kilbourne's website -- www.jeankilbourne.com -- contains a host of information, including:
An extensive list of resources for change
How to schedule a lecture by Jean Kilbourne to come speak in your school or organization
Information on her books

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Killing Us Softly 3 : Advertising's Image of Women

"As timely and important as ever. . .A must for everyone who cares about media literacy and gender equity."-- Susan Douglas | author, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up With the Mass Media

    Jean Kilbourne continues her groundbreaking analysis of advertising's depiction of women in this most recent update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series. In fascinating detail, Kilbourne decodes an array of print and television advertisements to reveal a pattern of disturbing and destructive gender stereotypes. Her analysis challenges us to consider the relationship between advertising and broader issues of culture, identity, sexism, and gender violence.

Includes a bonus 25-minute interview with Jean Kilbourne.

Sections:
Does the beauty ideal still tyrannize women? |
Does advertising still objectify women's bodies? |
Are the twin themes of liberation and weight control still linked? |
Is sexuality still presented as women's main concern? |
Are young girls still sexualized? |
Are grown women infantilized? |
Are images of male violence against women still used to sell products?

Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. Her films, slide lectures and television appearances have been seen by millions of people throughout the world. She was named by The New York Times Magazine as one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses today.

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New Clues to How Gastric Bypass Surgery Combats Diabetes

Gastric bypass surgery has been known to improve blood sugar control, often sending people with type 2 diabetes into remission, but experts have long wondered exactly how that happens. Now, a new study provides some clues. Circulating amino acids linked with insulin resistance decline dramatically in those who have the bypass surgery, the researchers discovered. They compared 10 obese people with diabetes who had the surgery with 11 who lost weight through dieting. "Something happens after gastric bypass that does not happen as much after the diet-induced weight loss," said Dr. Blandine Laferrere, an associate professor of medicine at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center and Columbia University, both in New York City.

The surgery, which reduces the stomach to the size of a small pouch, also modifies the junction between the stomach and small intestine. It leads to a dramatic reduction in the level of circulating amino acids that have been linked with diabetes. "The fact that gastric bypass results in the remission of diabetes in the majority of patients is not new," said Laferrere. According to background information in the study, 50 percent to 80 percent of diabetes cases go into remission after the surgery. What doctors have been trying to figure out, she said, is why the bypass surgery is so good at making the diabetes disappear. "The diabetes improves almost immediately, before a significant amount of weight loss occurs," she said. "That points out it is something other than the weight loss."

In the new study, the researchers evaluated biochemical compounds involved in metabolic reactions in the participants. Each group had lost about 20 pounds. The investigators found that the bypass patients had much lower levels of amino acids known as branched-chain amino acids, and the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. "Those changes in the amino acids could be implicated in the mechanism of diabetes remission after gastric bypass," Laferrere said. Experts know the amino acids are linked with insulin resistance partly due to animal studies, she said. "If you supplement the diet of rats with branched-chain amino acids, you can induce more insulin resistance," she explained.

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Weight Loss Surgery May Cut Knee Osteoarthritis Pain

Losing weight can help reduce the amount of pain experienced by obese people with knee osteoarthritis, researchers say. The new study included 24 obese adults, aged 30 to 67, with knee osteoarthritis who underwent weight loss surgery. The patients' knees were assessed before surgery and at six and 12 months after surgery. Patients who lost an average of 57 pounds within six months of having bariatric surgery showed significant improvements in knee pain, stiffness and physical function, the investigators found.

These patients also experienced improvements in quality of life, the ability to perform day-to-day tasks and sports activity. None of the patients received other treatments for their knee osteoarthritis. The findings were scheduled to be presented Saturday at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Specialty Day program. "Each individual had some kind of improvement in their pain from losing weight, some more than others," lead researcher Christopher Edwards, of the Penn State College of Medicine, said in a society news release.

"There are few studies that have investigated the role of isolated weight loss in the absence of additional arthritis treatment on those individuals with radiographically confirmed osteoarthritis," he added. "Further research still needs to be performed to investigate whether knee arthritis symptom improvement continues over time and applicable to those individuals who are simply overweight, but our research suggests a strong possibility of improvement."

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Creative Ads: Toronto Plastic Surgery

Thanks to the success of US television shows like Extreme Makeover, plastic surgery is fast becoming the norm. The latest advertising campaign for Canadian surgery ‘Toronto Plastic Surgery’ takes it one step further. Ad agency DDB Canada dreamed up this clever idea - allowing consumers to test-drive a new nose shape while drinking their coffee. We love it. 

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