Help me write something

anksta · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:19

I want to write an article which I hope to get published somewhere such as the Guide or a magazine.

I want to write it on current social aspects, people in general really, what they aspire to.

I've spent over an hour already and am havin a lot of trouble locating statistics you'd think are quite obvious. I need things such as average height, weight, income. I also want things such as number of tvs in britain compared to the number of households.

I'm planning on comparing these to what we aspire to, i.e. whats shown us in advertisements, on tv in films etc. Stuff such as the porn industry in the Uk is worth £1billion, how many people are members of gyms with how many people actually go. The health food industry compared to the fast food industry.

I want to put a perspective on what things are in our faces all the time, one advert on tv is a size 0 model telling you what make up will make you look like them and the one immediately after it will be telling you what good value the Pound Saver Menu is.

If anyone can help me with any interesting facts like these I'd be very appreciative, or if anyone has any other ideas for me to look into or if anyone wants to comment on the general idea or just tell me whether or not they'd be interested in reading something like this then I'd like to hear it.

PardonTheWait · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:22

I'll help you do that if you come to my work and help me make people's stationery...

oh no wait, that's MY JOB

VonClinkerhofen · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:25

Office of national statistics???

anksta · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:42

Mohinder said:
I'll help you do that if you come to my work and help me make people's stationery...

oh no wait, that's MY JOB

fair enough, but I dont mean go out of your way to find somethin for me, a lot of people know silly stats off the top of their head though, or have read somethin relevant recently.

Also, even though your obviously razor sharp with the wit, say if I did write something such as this, would it interest you? I want to know the opinions of the skeptics just as much as anyone else.

PardonTheWait · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:46

anksta said:
fair enough, but I dont mean go out of your way to find somethin for me, a lot of people know silly stats off the top of their head though, or have read somethin relevant recently.

Also, even though your obviously razor sharp with the wit, say if I did write something such as this, would it interest you? I want to know the opinions of the skeptics just as much as anyone else.

I probably would, yeah.

I wasn't being sceptical, I was only playing

anksta · 4 Jul 2007 at 00:51

Mohinder said:
I probably would, yeah.

I wasn't being sceptical, I was only playing

cool, glad to know you'd be interested.

I'm thinkin somethin along the lines of around a 1000 word essay.

If anyone knows anywhere interested in this kind of submission I;d be very grateful as well. I hope this idea and this thread wont just die out cos I think its quite a good idea.

Fraggr · 4 Jul 2007 at 01:04

You can find stuff like number of TVs per capita on standard of living lists.

anksta · 4 Jul 2007 at 01:06

Fraggr said:
You can find stuff like number of TVs per capita on standard of living lists.

cheers mate, never even heard of these before, they seem to be all books though, are there any on the internet anywhere?

Fraggr · 4 Jul 2007 at 01:13

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but it might help: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel_percap-media-televisions-per-capita

anksta · 4 Jul 2007 at 01:20

cheers fraggr.

interesting statistic for you lot, bulimia was only identified in 1977 and the cultural pressures of women in the western world, i.e. those influenced most by advertised etc. mean that almost 1 in 10 young women show symptoms of it.