There is a growing number of pro-anorexic Web sites that glamorize the disease, reported the London Free Press Dec. 8. They go by the names of Fragile Innocence and Emaciate Me and they provide an outlet for troubled young women to feel accepted and encouraged. Web site visitors are able to post poetry, artwork and photographs that characterize anorexia as a trendy habit, and lend the disease a spiritual quality. “These Web sites are extremely dangerous and they are never helpful because they glamorize the disease,” said Jennifer Mills, psychology professor in York’s Faculty of Arts. “The girls who visit these sites aren’t trying to seek help to get better,” Mills said. “They are seeking to validate their feelings.”
Unity slate wins York student elections
The Unity slate took 15 out of the 19 available seats on the York Federation of Students (YFS), including all three executive positions, reported Canadian Jewish News Dec. 9. One of those positions, vice-president of finance, was won by Rabia Siddiqui, a spokesperson for the campus group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. The incumbent Progress Not Politics (PNP) slate – which went into the vote with 27 of 32 seats on a larger YFS council – won only four seats. Paul Cooper, outgoing YFS president and leader of the original PNP slate, is the former head of York’s Young Zionist Partnership. In a pre-election edition of Excalibur, the main campus newspaper, Unity candidates called for “reinvigorated activism” and “empowering students who may feel isolated and disenfranchised.” The PNP campaign focused on enhancing student services and on issues related to campus life.
Football player turns to pole vaulting
Twenty-five-year-old John Zubyck won an Ontario Hockey League championship with the Guelph Storm in 1998. But instead of dreaming of playing in the National Hockey League, the recent York grad now dreams of making Canada’s national track and field team as a pole vaulter, reported the Windsor Star Dec. 8. Zubyck seems to have found his niche after switching to track and field at York University after playing two years of hockey. He graduated this fall with a BA in kinesiology.
On air
- Craig Heron, author of Booze: A Distilled History and history professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, discussed why alcohol is a big part of Canada’s identity and problem drinking is on the rise, especially in the four Atlantic provinces, on CBC Radio’s “Maritime Noon” Dec. 7.
- Vincent Tao, Canada Research Chair in geomatics at York, discussed satellite maps used in the filming of Enemy of the State, in an item aired on local news programs in Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay Dec. 7.