Media literacy has potential to improve adolescents' health.

l d p n t d Media literacy is a relatively new approach to helping oung people make good decisions about their health. My avorite simple definition of media literacy is that we’re eaching adolescents how to read “Baywatch” as well as Beowulf.” Basically, it’s the idea that the popular media television, movies, music, teen magazines, the Internet) in hich adolescents are immersed are probably as important s the classics in teaching cultural norms and expectations. ecades of research has shown that the media do affect dolescents’ aggressive and sexual behavior, body satisfacion and eating disorders, as well as alcohol use and cigaette smoking [1]. I and other media-effects researchers ave found that the media can serve as a kind of super peer or young people, glamorizing and normalizing often unealthy behavior [2]. When applied to health, media literacy means helping oung people see that the media are in the business of elling them products and behaviors that often are not good or them. By increasing awareness of how media are prouced and packaged, the assumption is that adolescents will ecome more critical of what they see and hear and will be ess likely to engage in the unhealthy behavior promoted in he media. We might think a more effective strategy would be to hange the media rather than the media’s consumers. But ffecting media content is an especially difficult proposition ith such a commercially driven and government-independent edia industry. Health advocates have had only limited sucess in getting the media to provide healthier content or to educe unhealthy fare. The elimination of cigarette advertising rom radio and television in the 1970s was a remarkable chievement, but that important step has been undermined as obacco has reemerged in other kinds of media. Currently, bout one in five of the episodes of popular, noneducational rime time television programs depict tobacco use [3], and rosmoking portrayals outnumber antismoking portrayals by a atio of ten to one [4]. Almost all of the top-rated movies for hildren, teens, and adults contain some portrayal of smoking hat usually conveys physical attractiveness and high social tatus [5,6]. Recent research has shown that teens who see ore movies that depict smoking are more likely to begin moking [7,8]. m