When I first heard about American Apparel’s new campaign, I thought it must have been a joke. I mean seriously, what kind of reputable clothing company would actually do something as offensive as start a campaign looking for the “best bottom in the world?”

Well, it’s no joke.

American Apparel has just launched a “Search for the Best Bottom in the World.” That’s right. From their website:

We’re looking for a brand new bum (the best in the world!) to be the new “face” for our always expanding intimates and briefs lines. The winners will be flown to LA,photographed, and featured online. Send in a close-up photo of your backside wearing American Apparel panties, bodysuits, or briefs for consideration and vote for your personal favorites.

Seriously?

I don’t even know where to start when it comes to pointing out just how wrong this is. In one fell swoop, American Apparel has 1) reinforced the harmful practice of objectifying women, 2) promoted the negative advertising practice of treating women as sexualized body parts as opposed to real people, 3) encouraged the photographing and emailing of racy photos to be posted online, and 4) essentially turned their website into a porn site where anyone can view scantily-clad women and vote for their favorites. And that just scratches the surface.

How in any way, shape or form did American Apparel think this ad campaign was a good idea?

I plan to let American Apparel know just what I think of their new contest and I encourage you to do the same. You can send them an snail mail or call them (American Apparel, 747 Warehouse St., Los Angeles, CA 90021 - Tel. +1 (213) 488-0226) or send them a note in their online feedback form.

I’m not alone here, right? Tell me what you think!

If you’re a fan of The Hills (and yes, even this smart girl admits to indulging in her fair share of MTV-sponsored reality television), then no doubt you’ve heard about Heidi Montag’s unveiling of her “new look,” the result of ten different plastic surgery procedures she had in one day last fall.

From enhancing her breasts to a double D and having a chin reduction, to getting fat injected into her cheeks and lips while having it sucked out of her neck, waist, hips and thighs, Heidi admits to being obsessed with plastic surgery while denying she is addicted to it.

Now, I’ve never once thought of Heidi as some kind of role model for girls, but I can’t help but cringe at the message this 23-year-old is making with her very public transformation. Especially when she says things like:

My main message is that beauty is really within. I have to do things that are going to make me happy at the end of the day, and I’m living in my skin and I look in the mirror and it’s my career, and my life, and I want to take advantage of everything and be the best me in and out in every way. (from her interview on Good Morning America)

I’ll be honest…I’m not a fan of plastic surgery…at all. Why? Because as more and more people undergo the knife in an effort to manufacture a more “beautiful” them, it reinforces this idea that “pretty is better” - that bigger breasts make everything better, fuller lips will make one more kissable, and a perfect nose, chin, and eyebrows are the key to true happiness. And since something like .0001% of the population is actually born with these “desirable” features, something appears to be very wrong with this equation.

I did a little research about teens and plastic surgery and found that, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the number of procedures performed on kids aged 13 to 19 nearly doubled to 244,124 (including about 47,000 nose jobs and 9,000 breast augmentations) from 2002 to 2006. That’s a quarter of a million teens (and realistically, many, many more by now) who felt so bad about themselves because of the way they looked that they were willing to risk their lives to make surgical “improvements.”

What are your thoughts about Heidi’s “main message?” What do you think the effects could be on teens as plastic surgery patients get younger and younger and these procedures become more and more common?

The fact that today’s teens are stressed out shouldn’t be news to anyone, but according to a new study by the American Psychological Association (APA), many parents don’t realize the severity of the affects of stress on their kids.

Says the APA, “Parents’ responses about sources of stress for their children were out of sync with what children reported as sources of worry. In general, children also were more likely to report having experienced physical symptoms often associated with stress than parents were to say their children experienced these symptoms.”

For example:

• 42% of teens say they get stress-related headaches, while only 13% of parents say their teens get them
• 49% of teens say they have trouble sleeping due to stress, while only 13% of parents say this is the case
• 39% of teens say they eat too much or too little as result of stress, while only 8% of parents see this as a problem for their teens

So why are so many parents so out of the loop? An article in Psychology Today suggests that parents themselves are more stressed, and are therefore less able to see the stress in the people around them, including their own children.

In my book Chill, I talk about the importance of building a personal support system made up of people you know you can turn to when life gets particularly stressful. Ideally, parents would be a part of this system for any teen, but they first need to understand what’s really going on in their teen’s life.

Want to talk? I’m going to be live on inkpop tomorrow to chat and answer questions as part of the site’s “Author Is In” series. If you have questions about the writer’s life, how to break into publishing, the Louder Than Words memoirs series, any of my books, or pretty much anything else, I’d love to see you there!

Here are the deets:

WHEN: Saturday, January 9, from 4-5 p.m. EST

WHERE: inkpop Forums

WHO: You and me

HOW: If you’re not already an inkpop member, you’ll have to log on and create a profile on inkpop.com. You must have an inkpop profile in order to post questions and comments on Forums. inkpop.com is an online community that connects rising stars in teen lit with talent-spotting readers and publishing professionals.

And while you’re there, check out my tips for avoiding the 5 most common writing mistakes teen make on the inkpop blog!

I hope to see you tomorrow!

XOXO Debbie

In order to educate teens about the hazards of harmful “digital abuse” like forced sexting, textual harassment, and cyberbullying, MTV has just launched A Thin Line, a campaign aimed at empowering teens to identify, respond to, and stop the spread of digital abuse.

Says MTV, “The campaign is built on the understanding that there’s a “thin line” between what may begin as a harmless joke and something that could end up having a serious impact on you or someone else. We know no generation has ever had to deal with this, so we want to partner with you to help figure it out. On-air, online and on your cell, we hope to spark a conversation and deliver information that helps you draw your own digital line.”

The website offers facts on digital abuse like sexting, constant messaging, spying, and digital disrespect; provides strategies for combating digital abuse; and is even hosting a $10K Challenge to encourage teens to come up with innovative solutions to digital abuse.

You can find out more about the Challenge here, and join the Facebook Fan Page here!

The New York Times ran an interesting article this week about a group of women making history in Iraq. On Monday, 50 women became the first-ever female graduates of Iraq’s police-officer training academy. In a country where women continue to face a steep uphill battle when it comes to achieving equal rights, this accomplishment has the potential to have a big impact.

Women have previously been able to serve doing things like directing traffic, but this is the first time women have been allowed to participate in training academy. These fifty impressive women are now full-fledged police officers who’ll be working investigations and in forensics.

Congratulations to these women for pursuing their dreams and setting an example for more women to follow. And it looks like they’ve already begun…the next group of trainees includes 100 women!

A new study that came out about stress and teens shows that stress related to school and family finances affects teens more than their parents realize. According to the study, 45% of tweens and teens say their stress has increased over the past year and 26% say they’ve worried more this year. But apparently many parents aren’t on the same page. In fact, only slightly more than half the parents of these teens agreed their children’s lives were more stressful. What does this mean? Are parents totally out of touch with what’s really going on with their teens?

Psychologist Katherine Nordal thinks so. “It’s clear that parents do not fully appreciate the impact that stress is having on their kids. What we’re seeing with stress is in line with existing research about parents’ perception of their kids’ engagement in risky behaviors. Parents often under report drug use, depression and sexual activity in their children. Now it appears the same may be true for stress,” she says.

The same study says that teens are experiencing more symptoms of stress, like anxiety, insomnia, headaches, and changes in appetite, even though their parents might not even realize these things are going on.

So, why are parents in the dark? Is it because they are more stressed out in their own lives and therefore don’t have the energy to tune in as well with their kids? Or is it because in this era where teens, especially girls, are expected to do it all and make it look effortless (what Liz Funk writes about in Supergirls Speak Out), teens themselves are not letting their parents know what’s really going on in their emotional lives?

Whatever the reason, the only way this statistic is going to turn around is by people getting real. Because despite all the outside very real causes of stress (grades, money, family pressures, friendship drama, overbooked schedules, etc.), perhaps the biggest source of stress in the lives of teens is the pressure they put on themselves. By being open and honest and real about what’s really going on and the challenges they face, this idea that everyone has to excel at everything will be revealed for what it is - an impossible standard that can never be met.

If you’re experiencing stress in your life, here are some quick stress-reducing strategies to try out:

1. Scream into a pillow
2. Escape with a video game
3. Get some fresh air
4. Take a brisk walk
5. Take a hot shower
6. Break your routine (walk home from school a new way, explore a new place, etc.)
7. Do a muscle check, notice where you are carrying tension, and focus on relaxing
8. Find a “theme song” that makes you feel happy, calm, and hopeful (mine right now is I Believe from Spring Awakening)
9. Give yourself a head massage
10. Plan a reward for later in day (think of something to look forward to)

For in-depth strategies on chilling out for teens, check out my book Chill: Stress-Reducing Techniques for a More Balanced, Peaceful You.

When I got up this morning, I was thrilled to find an article about Seattle teen Jessica Markowitz on the front page of the Seattle Times. Next month, at 14 years old, Jessica is receiving the 2009 World of Children Founders Award at UNICEF in New York for creating IMPUWE, a charity that sends 22 poor girls in Rwanda to school. Over the past three years, she has raised nearly $40,000, taken several trips to rural villages there, formed a partnership with the Seattle Girls’ School, and worked this past summer teaching Rwandan kids to read in English.

I already knew of Jessica because of my work on the Board of Directors for Seattle Girls’ School, but didn’t know about the award until this morning. Excited, I went to the article online, only to have my heart sink as I started reading some of the comments people had posted on the Seattle Times website about Jessica and her work, including things like:

While I appreciate that this girl is trying to do “good,” it does seem a bit disingenuous. Just take a walk downtown Seattle sometime, one will see many, many, in need…why “travel” to “help?”

While thousand starve and go without right here in her own country, her and her family rather find a remote place in the world? I don’t get it.

This is a rich kid whose parents can afford to jet her around the world at 11 or 12 to save some poor black kids. I’d like to have parents like that:) Mommy, let’s bake cookies for poor black kids. Then I get to jet set around the world as a benefactor before actually working myself.

What I find so confusing about comments like these is why some people are criticizing Jessica Markowitz for something she has done so well—listened to her personal values, her passion, and her heart in order to have a positive impact on an issue that connected with her?

What Jessica’s critics aren’t getting is that her story isn’t about how much money she has or where she comes from or the scale of her impact based on her parents’ financial status. Jessica’s story is that she is a social change agent, and she is doing that in the way that she can at this point in her life.

Social change agents come in all different shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Likewise, social change agents all have their own personal story…their own personal issues they want to affect. Some might be passionate about the environment. For others, it might be poverty in the U.S or animal rights issues. For Jessica, it is children who lost their parents in the Rwandan genocide. What every social change agent has in common though, is a desire to make a difference. Of course the scale of the impact made by social change agents will vary. One might change life for thousands, while another might change life for one. But is any positive impact too small to make a difference? Absolutely not. Imagine the impact a generation of empowered teens can have on their world as they all move forward with the passion, drive, commitment, and determination to address the issues they connect with?

What are your thoughts?

Click here to read more about Jessica and IMPUWE (formerly called Richard’s Rwanda).

Rihanna just released a new single called Russian Roulettte from her forthcoming album Rated R. I haven’t hear the song yet, but I did stumble upon this image for the cover art of the single. And I have to ask, what was Rihanna thinking?

Seriously, do we really need to see more images of women tied up, wrapped up, injured, suppressed, and dominated?
Coming off the heals of being assaulted by her former boyfriend, Chris Brown, I would have thought Rihanna was in the perfect position to portray an image of strength and empowerment for her many female fans. Instead, between the barbed wire (!) wrapped around her naked (!) body and an antiquated corset, this is just one of countless exploitative images in the media that portray women as victims and sex objects.

What do you think of this new album cover? What message do think it sends to the millions of girls who admire Rihanna as an artist?

Each year, the Nobel Prize is awarded to people who’ve made outstanding contributions in areas like chemistry, physics, medicine, literature, economics, and peace.You’ve probably heard a lot about the Nobel Prize in the past week, especially after President Barack Obama surprised many people around the world by being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

But President Obama isn’t the only Nobel Laureate making news. In fact, five other winners are getting a lot of attention, in part because they’re women. And that’s the largest number of women to win the prize in a single year. Here’s a look at the women who won:

• Ada E. Yonath - Chemistry - “For studies of the structure and function of the ribosomes”
• Elizabeth Blackburn & Carol Greider - Medicine - “For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase”
• Herta Muller - Literature - “Who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”
• Elinor Ostrom - Economics - “For her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”

The other night I heard a story on NPR about Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics, and some of the story focused on the fact that she is the first woman to ever win the prize for economics. The next night, the same news show on NPR mentioned that they received a lot of emails from listeners complaining that the original news story should have spent less time focusing on the fact that she was a woman, and more time focusing on her actual accomplishments in the field.

I can understand where these listeners are coming from. In an ideal world, a woman winning a major international award for economics wouldn’t be seen as unusual at all. But this isn’t an ideal world. This is a world where men dominate in careers in math, science, technology and engineering, in part because there aren’t many role models for young women to look up to.

Says prize winner Carol Greider in an interview for the New York Times about women in the field of science: “There’s still a slight cultural bias for men to help men…It’s not that they are biased against women or want to hurt them. They just don’t think of them. And they often feel more comfortable promoting their male colleagues.”

I say, let’s celebrate Elinor Ostrow’s accomplishment and that of all the women who won prizes this year as loud as we can! For they all made a major contribution in paving the way for girls and young women to pursue their future dreams and know that they really can come true.

What do you think? Should the gender of the winners be considered part of the news story? For more on this topic, go over to Jezebel.