By Jaclyn Siegel, Western Communications
Read. Watch. Listen. introduces you to the personal side of our faculty, staff and alumni. Participants are asked to answer three simple questions about their reading, viewing and listening habits – what one book or newspaper/magazine article is grabbing your attention; what one movie or television show has caught your eye; and what album/song, podcast or radio show are you lending an ear to.
Jaclyn Siegel is a doctoral candidate in Social Psychology.
Today, she takes a turn on Read. Watch. Listen.
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Read.
I Help People Recover From Disordered Eating. Don’t Give Your Child This App. By Christy Harrison, MPH, RD. Recently, Weight Watchers released a “wellness” (read: weight loss) app for children. Given the research linking childhood dieting and weight suppression to preoccupation with food, weight cycling, weight gain, and binge eating, the eating disorders research community has been vocal in their criticism. As someone who has interviewed nearly 100 people with eating disorders, and as someone who is in recovery from an eating disorder myself, I share these concerns.
The author of this article is Christy Harrison, who is the host of the Food Psych Podcast (another ‘Listen,’ if you don’t have enough already!). The article covers many issues, ranging from the harms of weight stigma to the dangers of dieting for children to her own experiences as a dietitian working with people with eating disorders.
Watch.
Booksmart. Media representations of women have historically been sexist (and often racist) in nature, reproducing and reinforcing stereotypes about girls’ and women’s roles in society.
For that reason, I was pleasantly surprised when I recently saw the movie Booksmart at Western Cinema.
The plot is about two high-achieving young women (and best friends) about to leave for university, who decide they want to break out of their shells for one night prior to their high school graduation. The movie normalizes the protagonists’ exploration of their sexual curiosity and sexual desire, highlights their humor and intelligence, and is a testament to the power of female friendships during difficult times.
It is also absolutely hysterical to watch.
Listen.
Cuz I Love You (Album). Lizzo. I’m generally not a fan of popular music, not because I have refined taste, but because I have almost exclusively listened to the Original Broadway Cast recording of Hamilton for the past three years.
That said, I recently listened to Lizzo’s new album Cuz I Love You – and I can’t stop thinking about the ways that Lizzo subverts limiting stereotypes and antiquated expectations of women, and constructs an agentic form of femininity that demands she embrace her fatness and blackness. Lizzo exudes every kind of confidence: body appreciation, sexual agency, and self-respect more broadly.
The songs are undeniably catchy, the lyrics are clever, and Lizzo herself is simply a force to be reckoned with. I can’t stop listening.
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If you have a suggestion for someone you would like to see in Read. Watch. Listen., or would like to participate yourself, drop a line to inside.western@uwo.ca.
