For those of us who have struggled to release ourselves from the grip of addictions, click on this link to hear this interview on National Public Radio’s program, Fresh Air. We’ve always known that the brain is intricately involved in stimulating and driving craving, but hear more of the current research findings about what activates the pleasure circuits in the brain and what it has to do with promoting self-harming behavior patterns. This program will help you understand what you need to understand about your brain in order to get on the other side of any addiction.

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=137348338&m=137371579

If you thought body image issues and eating disorders are only endemic to young people, think again. Here is the link to a radio program from two days ago when I joined Dan Gottlieb, host of Voices in the Family on NPR to discuss this topic. Then yesterday, the New York Times had an article titled “An Older Generation Falls Prey to Eating Disorders.” To top it off, I walked in to my dentist’s office this afternoon and saw the front cover of an AARP magazine from the early winter with Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristen Bell, and Betty White, titled “What Women Want - Sex, Loving and Staying Hot.”

No wonder women are embattled with their bodies. As Margo Maine reports on the radio show, it used to be that body image improved as women got older but this is no longer the case. With messages like this one from the AARP, it’s clear that we have a lot of pushing back to do to protect the self-esteem of all women, regardless of where they fall on the aging spectrum.

Here are the links to both the radio program and to the NY Times article.

http://www.whyy.org/podcast/voices20110328.mp3

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2011/03/29/health/healthupdate/index.html

An International Campaign called Endangered Species: Preserving the Female Body is underway in 3 cities: London, NY & Buenos Aires. www.EndangeredSpeciesWomen.org

You may be interested to know that a Summit will be held in New York City on March 18th &19^th. It will be a unique opportunity for academics, progressive media, and body activists to come together and share ideas about how to launch a united campaign to STOP the assault of our visual culture on girls and women (and increasingly boys and men). This will be an historic event marking the beginning of a unified, powerful resistance movement.

For those of you who are interested, all of the talks from the London Summit of Endangered Species have been made available as podcasts on this link:

http://thepodcastcompany.co.uk/endangered-species-seminar-4-3-11/