"In today's society most of your individuality is based on how you look because people don't take the time to look at your personality," said Kelley Carey, 17, of Marquette when asked her opinion on the importance of makeup in today's society. "In a perfect world, it would all be based on someone's personality, but•it isn't a perfect world."
8-18 Media interviewed students from Marquette Senior High School about the significance of girls wearing makeup.
8-18 Media: How much makeup do you wear and when did you start wearing it?
Gemma Martello, 16: I started wearing it when I was 14. I hardly ever wear makeup. Sometimes I will throw on mascara and sometimes I will throw on concealer because I don't want the big ugly zit showing.
Kelley: I wear black eyeliner, white eye shadow, lip gloss, sometimes bronzer or loose powder. Then if I go to a dance or out I might wear concealer or foundation. I wear the amount of makeup that I do because, personally, I think it makes me look better. I don't really wear that much because I don't need it. But I like the way my eyes look when I have eyeliner on. I think it enhances my features. I think I got my own makeup when I was 12.
8-18 Media: Why do girls wear makeup?
Kelley: When I was in seventh grade there was some chick on TV and she had really cool black eyeliner and black eye shadow, the gothic makeup. I did that all of seventh grade and I thought I was so cool.
Colin Barton, 18: I think most of the time there are many really young impressionable people out there and they'll just do what they see on TV, which is bad. I think a lot of celebrities like pop stars, music artists and movie stars influence young people to follow whatever trend they are setting.
Gemma: The media have a huge part in what teenagers buy because they are seeing, like Colin said, some of their favorite stars and they're going, ‘She wears it so I want to wear it.'
Colin: Younger girls are more influenced by Britney Spears and stuff, but then there are the more mature artists like Shania Twain. I know some girls who like her and they might see her on TV advertising lipstick and they say that's pretty cool. So I think that media, especially with commercials targeted at young women for makeup, will influence them and make them want to wear it, maybe excessively.
I think that someone might wear makeup because they want to fit into the group because all of their friends might be doing it. They might want to do it because they think it will make them more attractive or popular. And directly related to that would be raising their confidence. They might think that they are more attractive and it might make them feel better about themselves and that is not necessarily a good thing. They should be able to have that feeling without covering themselves with makeup.
Charlie LaVoy, 16: I think it not only is that everyone wears makeup that makes girls want to wear it, it is that everybody has always worn makeup. They're not saying ‘Oh I want to fit in.' They just start wearing the makeup because it is what everyone has always done. It's what everyone will always do.
Colin: There is probably more of an expectation. It is just an accepted thing that most women do so a lot of girls think they are supposed to do this. But I think they do it mostly because they think it will make them look better in the eyes of other people and for themselves.
Charlie: At prom I was like, ‘Why do you spend hours putting on these dresses and getting this makeup on? The time you put into this is crazy.' They said, ‘Well it's fun to just dress up.' You start to wonder if the girls are just playing princess everyday. Just sort of playing dress up. Little kids do it everyday and it is more of an ordinary thing. Even those people who go around with huge amounts of makeup and bleached hair and Abercrombie and Fitch stuff, I think they're just playing dress-up everyday of their lives which is kind of pathetic.
Kelley: I am not really sure why everyone wears makeup. I guess some people might do it to make a statement but personally, I use other things to make a statement and enhance my individuality.
Gemma: I think that a lot of girls are really messed up in the head and they think that they need a boyfriend and that is why they put on all that stuff, because they think they need a boyfriend and if they put on all that stuff, they think they will get a boyfriend and not be lonely.
Charlie: It is not the guys that expect the girls to wear it, it is the girls that do.
8-18 Media: How young is too young for girls to wear makeup?
Kelley: I don't think that there is a (set) age that girls should start wearing makeup. I put makeup on my 6-year-old sister and she wears it around and it's cute. But I guess heavy makeup like concealer and all that ... probably like around middle school because I think that is typically when everyone does. When you hit puberty and you get zits, you need to wear it.
Gemma: I think that they should not be wearing it before 12 because, OK I am going back to my baby-sitting clients, one of them, she's 8 years old and she has more makeup than me. It is all that little kid oil-based stuff that makes you break out even more. She has more makeup than me and it's really sad.
8-18 Media: Should parents have a say in what age a girl starts wearing makeup and how much she uses?
Gemma: Definitely. They should stop buying so much makeup for the little kids and as soon as they hit 12 or 13, when they really want to start wearing makeup, then buy them what they might think they need, not everything they want.
Kelley: If they're like in third grade and they're wearing that much makeup, then the parents need to be like ‘no.' But once they hit middle school, then just let the kids do whatever they want. If my mom told me that I couldn't wear makeup, I would wear it anyway and probably wear more.
Charlie: I think that the parents should always try more to state their arguments to their kids instead of just saying, ‘This is how I want it and this is how it's going to be.' So if your kid's going off, putting on huge amounts of makeup, the parents should just say, ‘You look (bad).' I mean , that is what I would say to my daughters. I would be like, ‘You look disgusting. Take some of that off.'
8-18 Media: Is makeup likely to cause disagreements between kids and parents?
Kelley: My mother and I sometimes argue and she'll be like ‘Kelley, you need to put on more makeup. You look washed out. Go put on some makeup.'
Colin: I think it probably would, like if the mom wears makeup and her daughter wants to but the mom won't let her and the daughter says, ‘Why not, you do it.' And mom says, ‘Because you're not old enough.' It doesn't make much sense, and the reason of ‘you're not old enough' is not a good reason for little kids, ever. So it will cause a lot of arguments. Then there's the issue of girls who are old enough to be wearing makeup who wear too much, or too little in some cases. That could probably cause arguments with their parents, especially the too-much-makeup part.
8-18 Media: How much makeup is too much?
Charlie: It really depends on if they wear a ridiculous amount of it or not. If they just put on a little bit of makeup you can't even really tell the difference. If they go all out ridiculous like with huge amounts of stuff and taking an hour a day putting it on, it is really scary. It's gross because they have all of that stuff on their face.
Kelley: When you can see the people walk by and the nice thick layer of makeup on their face, then that's just too much. You're like, ‘Dude, lay off.' Makeup was made to enhance your features and as long as that's what you use it for, I think it is fine to wear it.
Gemma: I can understand somebody wearing concealer if they have the big third-eye zit or the Rudolph look going on. I can understand wearing concealer and the occasional mascara or whatever to enhance features but when you start to look like a (prostitute), it's just bad. You know, the really red lipstick. The red lipstick with the blue eye shadow and everything.
8-18 Media: Do you think schools should set rules about makeup usage?
Kelley: No, it is none of their business.
Gemma: It's your own personal view and I think that the school administrators are trying to take away your sense of individuality.
Charlie: Administrators are not trying to take away students' individuality, they are trying to get the students to look more appropriate.
What I see is that eventually we are going to have kids in elementary school and middle school looking older and older and I think that far ahead in the future there is not going to be a difference between a child and an adult because they are all going to look the same and dress the same.
Colin: That is like a double-edged sword though because adults are always telling kids to be more mature so maybe the first step they want to take to be more mature is to look like adults.
8-18 Media: Do you think too much importance is put on makeup?
Gemma: Yes. Last year in school there was this one girl who was not wearing eyeliner one day and she felt really naked without it. She came into class and immediately found someone with eyeliner so she wouldn't feel so weird and I just think that is crazy.
Kelley: I have a friend who identifies herself with makeup. She just puts so much on that no one really sees what she really looks like. If she doesn't put it on she has to complain. I think my friend puts way to much importance on makeup.
8-18 Media: As guys, how do you feel about girls wearing make-up?
Colin: I think that if you don't wear too much makeup, and you wear just a little bit and still look good, then sure, go ahead and wear makeup.
Charlie: If they want to play ‘dress-up' I don't care. When they go overboard, I just want to stay away from them because they look down right bad, it makes them look ugly. I think that girls wearing makeup is a waste of time, but if they have fun doing it, then that's OK.

Editor's note: Editors for this story were Jenny Heise, 16; Nichole Durley, 17, and Tinashe Chatira, 18.

Lighten up!Kids need to lessen their backpack loads to avoid back problems later

By 8-18 Media

Steven Rebella, 13, of Marquette, lugs around a 20-pound backpack. Even though he usually carries it for only short distances such as to and from the schoolbus, he says it hurts his lower back.
••"I have a lot of books and we have homework and I have to bring the books home so I can do homework," Steven says.
Heavy backpacks are a common problem these days.
"Children are carrying more weight than ever before," says Brian Miller, an orthopedic physical therapist in Marquette.
Improperly packed backpacks can contribute to problems anywhere from a slight backache, all the way to the progression of scoliosis, the sideways curving of the spinal column.
"Using the backpack can make (scoliosis) worse," Miller says.
Heavy backpacks can impact the body's physical structure, he says. "It's just too much overload. You get compression on the spine, which can express fluid out of the discs, and that can damage the back."
Miller says having a heavy backpack can also adversely affect the joints.
"Where it really affects a person," he says, "is if they have a bone structure that is either too small for the backpack, or a structure that is too weak for the backpack."
There are no hard facts and figures, Miller says, but experts generally agree that kids shouldn't carry more than 15 to 20 percent of their body weight.
Miller says he's seen back problems in kids as young as fourth grade up to high school-age kids. Where it's most common, he says, is the age when they're carrying more books for homework but they haven't grown enough to handle the extra weight.
Usually by high school, kids' bodies have matured and have a bigger, stronger bone structure, but it can still affect small-framed teens.
"A 100-pound girl with a thin frame might have to carry the same amount of books as a 200-pound football player," Miller explains. "She's carrying twice as much, relative to her body weight."
Miller cites a study in the British Medical Journal, "They looked at 237 sixth graders, and measured the average weight of their backpacks. They were about 20 pounds, which came out to about 22 percent of their body weight. So they were a little bit over that 20 percent threshold. Sixty percent of those children at one time or another experienced back pain as a consequence."
An easy way kids can keep their backpacks light, he says, is to go through the backpack with their parents and remove what's unessential. Using lockers between classes helps too.
Not only is weight an issue, but also how the weight is distributed.
Slinging a backpack over one shoulder is "one of the big problems," Miller says. "A lot of kids think it's kind of cool to let the back pack just hang on one shoulder. That's OK for a brief period of time. But if you're carrying it for any period of time that could cause a problem."
Kids should use a backpack with wide, padded shoulder straps and put the heaviest items closest to their back, carrying the pack on both shoulders and pulling the pack close to their body so it rides on their back and not the shoulders.
Miller suggests a way schools can help. "Look at teachers getting together and staggering homework assignments so you don't get a lot of homework in every class on the same night and have to carry all the books."
He also suggests, "If someone had a bad medical problem and couldn't carry much weight, they might want to get an extra set of text books, one to keep home and one to keep at school."
Steven thinks that the relatively new backpacks on wheels are a good idea, though he hasn't bought one yet.
Miller agrees that pulling a wheeled bag is much healthier than lugging a backpack around. "The only difficulty is you still have to climb stairs in schools," he says. "And if it's a crowded schoolbus, it's going to be harder."

Editor's note: Charlie Martens, 18, edited this story. Reporters were Cassandra Christian, 12; Maya Hardie, 10; Matt Nyquist, 13; Eric Peterson, 13; Megan Rayhorn, 14, and Carrie White, 15.

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