My “sure-fire� strategy for helping students to write a highly critical and reflective cause and effect paper involves three steps: first, introducing the specifics of the causal analysis paper; second, having students read Susan Bordo’s Never Just Pictures and study the pictures in Retrospect: Building the Male Body and Lauren Greenfield’s Ashleigh, 13, with Her Friend and Parents, Santa Monica; and third, discussing the essay and images in conjunction with an exploration of digital images. Beginning with Susan Bordo’s essay is an excellent way to initiate a discussion of a very serious subject: the media’s effect on body image. As Bordo points out in Never Just Pictures, thanks to television, films, magazines, and tabloids, “children in this culture grow up knowing that you can never be thin enough and that being fat is one of the worst things one can be." After reading this quotation, we turn to Figure 2 Advertising anorexia? and study this image. I ask students if they feel that being exposed to pictures such as this one contributes to eating disorders. Then, I like to explore some web sites, beginning the exploration of influential images with the following site: Unofficial Calvin Klein Ads Archive. This particular site contains a plethora of images from Calvin Klein advertisements, and it should be noted that the images are risqué. However, looking at these ads and pointing out how all of the models—both male and female—are unnaturally lean and buff is important. Furthermore, this segment corresponds wonderfully with Bordo’s mention of Calvin Klein models. She points out that while Klein has “begun to use rather plain ordinary-looking, unmadeup faces in [his] ad campaign. . .looks—a lean body—still matter enormously in these ads.� She adds that these advertisement are actually “reasserting the importance of body over face as the ‘site’ of our fantasies." Next, we discuss the pictures in Retrospect: Building the Male Body because it is important to point out that women are not the sole victims of eating disorders—men are plagued by them, also. As shown in this series of advertisement, for the past century, men have been targeted by the media. Men have been told that “weakness is a crime� and it brings “shame." In addition, the 1967 “Relax-A-cizor� advertisement shows that having a trim waistline not only makes you look more attractive, but it causes women to cling to your body. I point out to students that men are still victims of this type of advertisement. In particular, in beer commercials, men—lean and muscular men—are always surrounded by beautiful women. Never do we see pictures of the average male—the one with smaller pectorals and tiny love handles. Then, I like to show students this web site: Hillary Fashion. It contains magazine excerpts from interviews with various models and celebrities who admit that their photographs have been airbrushed—the images of perfect bodies that we are bombarded with are not true representations of the body. Finally, we discuss Lauren Greenfield’s Ashleigh, 13, with Her Friend and Parents, Santa Monica. As we look at the image of Ashleigh and discuss her apparent obsession with weight, we discuss how tragic it is that a child this young could be suffering from an eating disorder. We talk about the images that we have analyzed and the advertisements and how they influence adults, and I point out that, unlike adults who can actually realize that photographs are airbrushed, children believe what they see. Then we explore web sites which contain statistical information on anorexia and bulimia: About Eating Disorders and Statistics on Eating Disorders. The data contained in these sites helps to solidify the seriousness of eating disorders in our country and around the world. After discussing the alarming statistics found on these web sites, I like to end the visual discussion with images from the following web site: Too Skinny? This particular web site contains some startling images of anorexic models. They are quite shocking. I close this particular class discussion by asking students to work in groups and to list the numerous causes and effects that the media has on our body image. At the close of this class, in addition to being prepared to write an interesting cause and effect paper, students are left feeling shocked by the statistics and feeling somewhat angry with the world of media and advertising. However, most assuredly, students will view society and their role within it in a different light. In addition, the next time they see an advertisement containing beautiful bodies, they will likely not only question the authenticity of the image, but they will, perhaps, wonder how other people are being influenced by it.