Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 130
•
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-1-4758-1356-2 • Hardback • May 2015 • $80.00 • (£62.00)
978-1-4758-1358-6 • Paperback • May 2015 • $40.00 • (£30.00)
978-1-4758-1359-3 • eBook • May 2015 • $38.00 • (£30.00)
Vanessa Domine is associate professor in the Department of Secondary and Special Education at Montclair State University and the author of Rethinking Technology in Schools. She holds a doctorate in Media Ecology from New York University and is interested in how media and technology can support democratic practices in education.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Pursuit of Health Literacy
A Media Literate Approach to Health
A Focus on Adolescence
Healthy Teens Through Healthy Schools
About This Book
Part I: Healthy Teens
1—A Nation at Risk
A Statistical Snapshot
An Obsession with Sugar and Caffeine
Prescription Drug Use
A Complicated Relationship With Food
A Sedentary and Technologized Culture
The Conundrum of Obesity
Obesity: Cause, Effect, or Both?
Socio-Economic Disparities of Obesity
Moving Beyond the Data
2—A Social History of Media and Health
The Moral Epoch of Print
The Health Costs of Industrialization
High Schools as Moral Centers
Protecting Youth in a Broadcast EraTV as (Processed) Food for ThoughtThe Impact of Instructional TV and Film
The Perils of Advertising
A Hyper-Focus on Media Effects
What Makes a Public Health Media Campaign Effective?
New Technologies, New Challenges
3—Teen Health—Is There An App for That?
Health Communication 2.0
Bridging the Digital Health Divide
Crowdsourcing Health
The Hazards of Data Personalization
T2x: A Transmedia Approach to Teen Health
Media Literacy: Asking Critical QuestionsHow Do Users Interpret Health Messages?How Is Health Constructed Through Mass Media?
How Are Media Languages Used To Construct Health?
What Values Are Associated With Health?
Who Owns the Media Constructions of Health?
Morphing Analysis into Action
Part II: Healthy Schools
4—The Politics of Adolescent Health
Let's Move to Pepsi
Under the Influence
Government Regulation
The Political Battlefield of the School Cafeteria
Maximizing Nutritional Value
The Politics of Healthy Schools
Moving Forward
5—A Healthy Curriculum
A Standards-Based Approach
Link to Academic Achievement
A Mandate to Integrate
A Transdisciplinary Approach
Lessons from NeverSeconds
Lessons from the Edible Schoolyard
A Whole School Model6—It Takes a VillageMapping the Village
Family Engagement
Peer Mentoring
Farm to School
Culinary Professionals
School-University Partnerships
Non-Profit Alliances
Media Advocates
Beyond the Village
Index
In this book, Domine advocates for practices, programs, and interventions that would foster media literacy—specifically health literacy—among adolescent youth. Using a social constructivist approach, Domine examines the historical connections among the adolescent youth culture, media technology, public health, and industrialization. She analyzes data from various sources to summarize the health challenges that adolescent youth currently confront and shows how the health and health literacy of adolescents have been marginalized, co-opted, and failed by the entwined institutions of public education, business and industry, technology, and politics. Her analysis of the commercialization and politicalization of youth health issues, such as federal school and breakfast programs and physical activity campaigns, is particularly enlightening. Ultimately, the most important contribution of Domine’s work is her identification and description of effective adolescent health approaches and initiatives. Professionals who focus on adolescent health within the disciplines of public health, health education, and health promotion can find a foundation for their work in this interesting book that illustrates holistic health education through school-community initiatives and innovative partnerships. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.
— Choice Reviews
The health of our youth and our country can benefit immensely from placing copies of this groundbreaking book into the hands of parents, educators, health care providers, and policy makers. Healthy Teens, Healthy Schools provides not just thorough analysis of the health issues facing the US and much of the Western World, it also connects these issues brilliantly within a historical context revealing the past and present role media play in contributing to our current health crisis. While the analysis is insightful, the true power of the book comes from its proactive pedagogical solutions in which Vanessa Domine provides practical advice for how a critical media health literacy education can confront these problems through empowering youth to think critically about the messages they consume and the healthy habits they develop.
— Jeff Share, PhD, UCLA
If you are not concerned about the effects of exposure to electronic media on the health of teenagers, you should be. This book presents a well-researched, highly compelling case for the urgent need for media literacy education to be incorporated into school wellness programs as soon as possible.
— Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, New York University, and author of books about food politics
Healthy Teens, Healthy Schools offers a holistic look at how mass media, popular culture and digital technologies influence children and teens, and how the practice of media literacy education can help address important health issues issues including nutrition, body image, aggression, sexuality and social relationships. Vanessa Domine situates media literacy as a practice that contributes to the development of smart, engaged and responsive young people. She offers a big-picture perspective that enlightens, informs and inspires readers. This book will enable every teacher to become a health educator, by activating those “how” and “why” questions that enable us to see the relationship between our highly-mediated cultural environment, our social relationships, and our individual behaviors, beliefs and attitudes.
— Renee Hobbs, Harrington School of Communication and Media, University of Rhode Island