Body Image Perception: Adolescent Boys and Avatar Depiction in Video Games

Research on mass media’s impact on body image has mostly been focused on females thus far. Of the little research that has been done on male body image, most of it has been focused on adult males, and therefore the effect of mass media on adolescent boys’ body image is still a relatively primitive field of knowledge. Through comparing the exposure of adolescent boys to muscular avatars in popular video games, a source of mass media that a majority of adolescent boys are exposed to, and relating it to research done on the effects of frequent ideal image exposure through other forms of mass media on males, the influence of video games on the body image of adolescent boys can be determined. This study consisted of several factors: (1) understanding the impact of constantly viewing ideal images in mass media on males’ perceptions of their own bodies, (2) reviewing the body types of the male avatars in several modern, popular video games played by adolescent boys, (3) relating the exposure of video game avatars on adolescent boys’ views of their own physiques, and (4) examining the implications of negative body image on adolescent boys’ eating and exercise strategies. Although video game avatars tend to have a slightly different body shape than those presented in most types of mass media, their unifying trait of naturally unattainable muscularity resulted a reaction among adolescent boys that was similar to that of adult males with regard to mesomorphic (muscular, V-shaped) body types in mass media. This resulting negative body image can lead to psychological disorders such as depression or such physical disorders as anabolic steroid usage, unnatural dieting, and excessive exercising

Human resources for eye care: changing the way we think

The question of human resources is central to the success of VISION 2020 and of any health programme.The VISION 2020 global initiative document clearly spelt out what personnel was required and, more recently, the World Health Organization document on human resources for health care made recommendations on the type and number of people needed in order to meet all our objectives in global health. In spite of this, practically none of the national eye care policies articulated so far have a clear recommendation on human resources

Perspectives on primary eye care

We think of primary eye care (PEC), and any kind of primary health care (PHC), as a ‘frontline’ activity, providing care and identifying disease before it becomes a serious medical issue. However, as this course showed, even a cursory review of systems across the world reveals that there is no common understanding of what primary eye care means and there exists a wide variation both in its content and in the way in which it is delivered

The Frontlines and Margins: Gendered Care and Covid-19 in the Indian Media

Among the many stories that emerged out of India during the pandemic, one was somewhat buried under the media discourse around the migrant crisis, lockdown regulations, and economic fallout. This was the story of striking accredited social health activist workers asking for fair wages, improved benefits, and better working conditions. The Covid-19 crisis highlighted the poor health infrastructure and the precarious, and often, stigmatized nature of frontline work, managed at the community level by paramedical workers, a significant proportion of whom are women. There has been considerable attention paid by feminist groups as well as health-related civil society organizations on the gender-based inequities that have emerged during the pandemic, particularly in relation to care work. This study explores how care work performed by the accredited social health activists was framed in the mainstream media, through an examination of articles in three selected English daily newspapers over one year of the pandemic. Drawing on theoretical work deriving from similar health crises in other regions of the world, we explore how the public health infrastructure depends on the invisible care-giving labor of women in official and unofficial capacities to respond to the situation. The systemic reliance on women’s unpaid or ill-paid labor at the grassroots level is belied by the fact that women's concerns and contributions are rarely visible in issues of policy and public administration. Our study found that this invisibility extended to media coverage as well. Our analysis offers a "political economy of caregiving" that reiterates the need for women’s work to be recognized at all levels of functioning

Feminist Futures of Work:Reimagining Labour in the Digital Economy

The future of work is at the centre of debates related to the emerging digital society. Concerns range from the inclusion, equity, and dignity of those at the far end of the value chain, who participate on and off platforms, often in the shadows, invisible to policymakers, designers, and consumers. Precarity and informality characterize this largely female workforce, across sectors ranging from artisanal work to salon services to ride hailing and construction. A feminist reimagining of the futures of work—what we term as “FemWork" —is the need of the day and should manifest in multiple and various forms, placing the worker at the core and drawing on her experiences, aspirations, and realities. This volume offers grounded insights from academic, activist, legal, development and design perspectives that can help us think through these inclusive futures and possibly create digital, social, and governance infrastructures of work that are fairer and more meaningful

Digitalisation and Transformations of Women’s Labour in Sanitation Work

The waste management sector has attracted the private sector in India. Taking the case study of a start-up in waste sorting and recycling, the essayexamines how technologies used in such spaces affect women's work. It finds that there is a shift in the perceptions of who engages in this work and how thework itself is experienced and seen. But it also cautions against the perpetuation of the gendered division of labour in sanitation work, particularly in roles thatdemand technical (often digital) literacy/competence

Agency and servitude in platform labour:a feminist analysis of blended cultures

Digital labour platforms have become important sites of negotiation between expressions of micro-entrepreneurship, worker freedom and dignity of work. In the Global South, these negotiations are overlaid on an already fraught relationship mediated by the dynamics of caste and culture, to the usual politics of difference. Urban Company (UC), an app-based, on-demand platform in India that connects service providers offering home-based services to potential customers, lists professionalised services that have hitherto been considered part of a ‘culture of servitude’, performed by historically marginalised groups afforded little dignity of labour. Such platforms offer the possibility of disrupting the entrenched ‘master-servant’ relationship that exists in many traditional cultures in the Global South by their ostensibly professional approach. While service providers now have the opportunity for self-employment and gain ‘respectability’ by being associated with the platform, UC claims to have leveraged AI to automate discipline in everything the providers do. Using interviews with UC women service providers involved in beauty work and software development engineers, this paper explores the agency afforded to service partners in both professional and personal spheres. Further, we propose the term blended cultures to think about the ways in which algorithms and human cultures mutually (re)make each other.</p

Blindness and poverty in India: the way forward

A few recent studies have shown that poverty is an exacerbating and often determining factor in the incidence of disabling conditions, including visual impairment. Recent estimates from the World Health Organization indicate that 90 per cent of all those affected by visual impairment live in the poorest countries of the world. India is home to one-fifth of the world's visually impaired people and therefore, any strategies to combat avoidable blindness must take into account the socio-economic conditions within which people live. This paper looks at the relationship between poverty and blindness in India and suggests strategies to address blindness prevention in a comprehensive manner