Professors study media's influence on at-risk behaviorsCommunication professors examine how media messages influence — for better and worse — teen smoking and eating disorders. Donald Helme and Steven M. Giles have more in common than having earned their doctorates at the University of Kentucky and serving now as assistant professors in Wake Forest's Department of Communication. Both hold joint appointments in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at the School of Medicine. They have collaborated on grant proposals and research manuscripts. And both specialize in using communication as a health intervention tool for adolescents and young adults.
To be sure, they have their differences. Helme concentrates primarily on adolescent smoking while Giles focuses mainly on disordered eating and problem drinking among college students. Helme specializes in designing and evaluating media messages that can attract and hold the attention of at-risk adolescents, while Giles specializes in identifying how peer norms and networks can influence college students to make poor behavioral choices. But essentially, they are more alike than different. Both embrace a common purpose: to parlay their knowledge into strategies to deter at-risk adolescents and young adults from engaging in risky and self-destructive behaviors. Sensation-Seekers and At-Risk Behaviors Before joining the faculty in 2003, Helme was a scientist for a cancer research center in Denver, Colo., where he sought to determine which features of public service announcements (PSAs) are most effective at discouraging teens from using tobacco and marijuana. "We're all hard-wired for needing certain amounts of excitement, and high sensation seekers, who are most at risk for engaging in [perilous] behaviors like drug abuse and unsafe sex, need a lot of excitement to keep from getting bored," Helme says. "This strongly suggests the kinds of PSAs that might be effective in persuading high sensation-seekers to assume healthier attitudes and behaviors. The PSAs need to be stimulating, fast-paced and packed with action, but also contain a strong story line." One particularly effective Truth Campaign PSA that Helme tested was for a fictitious beverage called Splode. The opening shot is of three teens poised to bungee-jump from a bridge. The first two do wild and thrilling jumps, but the third hits the gorge bottom and explodes. Then comes the real message: only one product actually kills one-third of its users--tobacco. Follow-up studies conducted by Helme showed the PSAs to be quite effective in changing attitudes toward and usage of tobacco among Colorado teenagers. "An extra bonus was that low sensation seekers also liked the PSAs," Helme says. "We got double bang for the buck with our [spots]." Smoking Rises Among College Students While the rate of smoking adoption is falling among the high school student population, it is on the rise among college students--a trend Helme attributes to a shift in marketing strategy by the tobacco companies. "Unable to lawfully direct its advertising to teens and pre-teens, the [tobacco] industry now tries to grab them when they reach 18 with giveaways and other promotions," says Helme, whose other research interests include strategies for developing and supporting anti-tobacco coalitions for the benefit of native American and minority populations as well as physician-patient communication as it relates to patient satisfaction and compliance by diabetics and other chronic disease sufferers with prescribed treatment regimens. "We need to develop campaigns that are targeted specifically at the college-age population. The challenge is that college students consume different types and amounts of media than do teens and preteens, making it more challenging to reach them with health-related messages. But until we develop some special strategy, we'll need to continue using television." Giles, who was an adjunct instructor in the communication department for four years prior to joining the faculty full-time in fall 2002, previously was a research associate at Tanglewood Research Inc., a Greensboro-based company that was launched by Dr. William Hansen, formerly of the Division of Public Health Sciences at the School of Medicine. There, he obtained grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create educational drug abuse prevention materials and to develop a continuing education teacher-training course. Disordered Eating In the past three years, Giles has turned his attention to another subject: the social and environmental factors influencing college students' eating habits. "I asked one of my classes in the spring of 2004 what the number one health problem on college campuses was," Giles recalls. "I thought they would say drinking, or drinking and driving, but the top response was eating disorders. Another class confirmed that perception. "That really put it on the map for me," he goes on. "It opened the floodgates. One student came into my office and told me it was a serious problem for his girlfriend. In their minds, eating disorders were a universal expectation--part of being a popular and successful college student." While only 1 to 5 percent of college students report having been diagnosed with an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, studies indicate that anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent of all college students engage in some form of disordered eating, such as vomiting, the use of laxatives or diet pills, self-starvation or obligatory exercise. Women who fit a certain profile--white; middle to upper class; highly competitive and perfectionistic--have traditionally been seen as the highest-risk group, but recent research indicates that eating disorders are on the rise among African Americans, Latinas and even white males. From data he gathered from first-year and upperclass students through surveys, focus groups and other instruments, Giles gleaned some insights into the social norms and environmental factors behind the behavior. "Social norms included one's perception of its prevalence and acceptability and the extent to which one's peers think thinness is important," he notes. Among the environmental factors were body-esteem, media influences and parental attitudes. "Mixed messages are a challenge," he continues. "Sororities will serve cookies and pizza at social functions but communicate to their members that thinness is important for the image of the chapter and the campus as a whole. Parents' comments and attitudes about weight also can have a negative influence on a child's body esteem and is often a precursor to disordered eating behavior. We even hear stories about mothers engaging in weight loss competitions with their daughters to see who can wear the smallest clothing size." Alcohol's Role Giles also has collaborated with scientists in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at the School of Medicine to study the relationship between eating and alcohol consumption. "We found that 32 percent of college women reported restricting calories on days they planned to drink, and that 24 percent of these women did so because of weight concerns," Giles notes. "Restricting calories on days they planned to drink was significantly associated with binge drinking and getting drunk. Clearly, many of the ways that college students compensate for potential weight gain can have terrible consequences." Giles thinks that many of the underlying causes of disordered eating are also related to other problem behaviors such as smoking, drinking or unsafe sex. He has co-authored a paper with Helme and another departmental colleague, Marina Krcmar, which examines this issue in depth. "In my opinion, at the root of it all is heart rot," Giles says. "These students are trying to fill the hole inside with whatever they think will give them value among their peers." By David Fyten |
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