PM: Well thanks Sarah. Sarah and I and Mia have been talking about this report which they have just presented the Government, Proposed National Strategy on Body Image. And this is really big, it's important it's all about how our young people in particular feel about themselves. And how we deal with it better in our schools, in our families, in our community, and what industry have to do about it as well, in terms of promoting healthy body image. So thanks for your work, tell us a little bit about what it involves.
MURDOCH: Thank you very much. Yeah, we've had a fantastic group on the body advisory board. It's really about self-esteem in our youth. A Mission Australia survey over the last three year has shown that this is the number one cause in our youth today is self esteem and body image. Which I just find astounding. So something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now. So we are looking at an education program. We would love to have an education program in schools, in our community, and rewarding media and the industry who start to show more diversity in their photos, in their stories about body image. You know, we think that the media are on a roll at the moment. We think it's the perfect time to do this. I think that the community and the people out there are saying enough is enough. You know, we need to see different body types and different types of people in our media.
PM: Two quick questions. One is about just the impact of what can happen, say, with cyber bullying, on a young person's self image. Give me your sense having been out there consulting with people, actually happens in a young person's headspace when this goes wrong.
MURDOCH: Well I mean a lot of bullying is around image. It's about looking right. What is that perfect high school girl? Should she be tall, skinny, blonde wearing makeup, who knows, but it seems to be a lot about the image and that this is how bullying can begin. And you're talking about 12, 13 year old girls in years 7 and 8. But unfortunately research has shown that it is also starting as young as 5, 6, 7 years of age which is just-
PM: 5, 6, and 7?
MURDOCH: And we're talking about our little kids here who are starting to be influenced at such a young age about how they look, and whether that affects their self-esteem, and then goes on to depression and anxiety and that obviously takes them through to the rest of their lives.
PM: That is seriously tragic. If you are looking at littlies you should be enjoying being kids and not even faintly worrying about this. I think we have a bit of a social disease happening out there and we actually need to take some action. The other question I had for you is about industry's role. I see up the back here we've got a voluntary code of conduct for the industry, and that involves the media that involves the advertising industry and all those sort of folk. How's it going to go in terms of promoting, let's call it, a more, you know, representative spread of what the Australian family looks like?
MURDOCH: Well we're expecting it to be difficult, actually. We think the media are very set in their ways about what they think is what people want, but we're starting to prove as time goes on, this isn't what people actually want to see, people don't want to see one ideal image. It's not real. And the more that you start to see different campaigns out there, celebrating different body types, the more people are going to start buying those magazines, and watching those television shows, we really believe that. So we're encouraging media, we've kept it voluntary, but we want to reward them. So any media or industry that comes on board, we're talking about retailers as well, come onboard and celebrate diversity, we want to reward them in some way. So we are going to hopefully come up with some way that can say to them, you know, you can use this as a marketing tool, and we're going to celebrate the fact that you've shown diversity in your industry.
PM: That's good stuff. So family, community, what happens out in the industry as well. So if you want to give a report a read, it'll be here online, and this is something that'll only work if the entire community gets behind it. Thanks Sarah, thanks Mia, and thanks the rest of the team.
MURDOCH: Thank you.
(The video related to this transcript is available from the Multimedia section of this website.)