Attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and stereotypes are influenced by many factors, including the media. Most disability-related magazines and media already contain many positive images, so advocacy for attitude change should focus on increasing inclusion in media geared to the general public. To the public and media, health/fitness and disability often seem mutually exclusive; this perception perpetuates barriers to health, exercise, and recreation.
Are there any persons with disabilities in features or advertisements in current issues of popular sports, fitness and health magazines? To its credit, Canoe and Kayak recently offered an article on adaptive paddling, including pictures. However, none of the magazines reviewed depicted persons with disabilities in advertisements. Why not? Why can't there be a person with a disability driving an SUV with a kayak on top? A disabled parent camping with the family in a Coleman tent? A woman handcycling along a trail and drinking Poland Spring water? Getting fit in an ad for a gym? One would think that persons with disabilities do not participate in outdoor recreation or fitness, never drink bottled water or sports drinks, eat nutrition bars, take vitamins, wear sunglasses, or buy sports and athletic equipment.
Despite an estimated buying power of over $700 billion, the American public only views people with disabilities in the media 1.5% of the time, according to the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication. Likewise, there is a considerable under-representation of persons with disabilities in current advertising as well as a virtual exclusion in prime-time television advertising (Ganahal & Arbuckle, 2001; Ganahal & Kallem, 1998). Physically impaired individuals have similar backgrounds, lifestyles, and purchasing habits as those without disabilities; therefore, it makes sense to include images and articles of persons with disabilities in the general media.
The media claims it has increased its effort to depict people with disabilities realistically in an attempt to reverse the prior negative portrayal of persons as pitiable, bitter, angry, a burden, sick, frail and unable to participate in life (Klobas, 1988; Nelson, 1992, 1999). Companies have become aware of the profitability of including persons with disabilities in their advertising (Haller & Ralph, 2001). Persons with hearing impairments and persons using wheelchairs have been the main advertisement images (Dougherty, 1986). Wheelchair athletes first appeared in Levi's and McDonald's television advertisements; companies such as Nike, Citicorp, Apple, Pacific Telesis, Nissan, and Target featured wheelchair users in TV or print ads by 1991 (Dougherty, 1986; Sagon, 1991).
It is the images that the media doesn't portray that present the greatest adverse effect on people's perceptions. Images of exercise, good nutrition, being fit, participating in recreation, etc., are least likely to be associated with disability.
Public attitudes toward persons with disabilities generally combine sentiment, stereotype, ignorance, and curiosity (Wolfe, 1996). When someone sees a person with a disability portrayed in the media, he or she may not have any other knowledge about or experience with such an individual. With little else to go on to either refute or support the validity of the portrayal, these images can have a profound effect on beliefs and attitudes. This effect shows up in the form of a general lack of understanding and can add to social, environmental, and political barriers. Therefore, the challenge to the visual media is to present an accurate representation of people with disabilities in all aspects of life, including images relating to health, fitness, and physical activity.
What are the implications of the images in existing sports and fitness advertisements? Attitudes that are perpetuated by the media, including advertising, are society's emphasis on physical integrity, "body beautiful," personal appearance, and athletic prowess (Roessler and Bolton,1978; Wolfe,1996; Wright,1983). As with all advertising images, the "pretty people" and least "disabled-looking" are depicted. Usually disabled people in commercials look like able-bodied people in wheelchairs (Lipman, 1989 Sept. 7, p. 1). Advertisers want their products to be associated with images of power, credibility and appeal. The good-looking, athletic disabled person sells products without lessening personal power and magnetism.
The sporting goods company Nike has used disabled athletes in a number of its advertisements. Nike's TV ads have a mixture of the incidental use of disabled models and one featured disabled athlete, Craig Blanchette, who held two world records in wheelchair racing in 1989. The Blanchette spot is called "Cross Training with Craig Blanchette," and no scene or mention of his disability is made in the first 27 seconds of the 30-second commercial. He is referred to as a 1988 Olympic bronze medalist. The ad shows Blanchette lifting weights, then playing basketball and tennis. The scenes are athletic, and Blanchette appears muscular and rugged. Only in the last few seconds is it revealed that Blanchette is a wheelchair athlete when the camera pans down and he says: "So I never quit," turns his back to the camera and races down the track in his sports wheelchair. Nike officials said it was not relevant to them that Blanchette is a wheelchair-using double-leg amputee. Nike's vice president of marketing explained, "He's a great athlete, which ties to our usual strategy...and he's a really motivating guy to be around. The fact that he was handicapped was secondary" (Lipman, 1989 Sept. 7, p. 1).
Some disability advocates, as well as media researchers of disability images, are concerned that many ads, like Nike's, use disabled athletes in a way serves to extend the Supercrip image (Clogston, 1990; Covington, 1988). John Clogston defined the Supercrip as the disabled person who is portrayed as deviant because of "superhuman" feats (i.e., a mountain climber who has a prosthesis) or as "special" because they live regular lives "in spite of" disability (i.e., a wheelchair user who swims). The image reinforces the idea that for someone who is portrayed as less than "complete", the accomplishment is "amazing". David Lewis, a quadriplegic who is community relations coordinator for the Center for Independent Living, a non-profit group based in Berkeley, California, says, "It would be nice to have a severely disabled person depicted instead of your superjock 'crip'." Attractive and sports-minded individuals and wheelchair athletes do not truly represent the diversity within the disability community. "Not every person with a disability is young, beautiful and athletic" (McLaughlin, 1993 Aug. 22, p. 31).
Beth Haller (1998, 2000) sees another problem with the Supercrip images in the media, such as the recent coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ruling in favor of Casey Martin. Casey Martin used the ADA when the PGA failed to accommodate his disability. "The Supercrip image kicks real issues off the table," Haller says. "Rather than focus on the power of the ADA in halting discrimination, the emphasis becomes the inspirational Supercrip. Martin's accommodation wasn't something 'special', it was the law...." "Portraying someone as inspirational is just another way of pitying them," Haller says. "Because society holds so few expectations for individuals with disabilities, anything people ordinarily do becomes 'amazing.'" Other people with disabilities applaud finally being visible in ads. Success stories illustrate that persons with disabilities can live full, happy, and rewarding lives. In addition, they provide role models for younger people with disabilities.
The under-representation of persons with disabilities in recreation/fitness images is detrimental in other ways. To view persons with disabilities as not inclined to be health-conscious, exercise and participate in health-sustaining activities maintains barriers to fitness and health. Facilities don't equate disability with the need for fitness. The ADA legislates accessibility. In reality, fitness facilities, community recreation centers and YMCAs/YWCAs (YMCA of the USA) are rarely without barriers to pools, whirlpools, bathrooms, showers, or gyms. Most gyms do not include specialized workout equipment. Many fitness and recreation centers maintain the attitude that there isn't a demand for adaptive fitness equipment, classes or accessible facilities. Or they claim that the few people who might utilize something just don't justify the expense. Never mind that accommodation is the law!
Stereotypes about disability affect the desire to even pursue fitness. Many persons with disabilities do not want to encounter the whispers, stares, or comments of the non-disabled public or the bias and insensitivity of staff members. A woman shared with me that maintenance staff at a facility discouraged her from swimming because they felt disabled persons were likely to be incontinent and urinate in the pool. Another individual said he was strongly dissuaded from using a whirlpool at his gym because staff was concerned that he might get sick or have a seizure. Individuals do not want to attend classes where they are asked by instructors, "What's wrong with you?" And public perceptions of disabled persons have an even greater impact on health policy. According to researchers with the Center on Health Promotion Research for Persons with Disabilities, people with disabilities are often not included in programs for the primary prevention of chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Health issues among women with disabilities, such as mammogram accessibility, frequently are not addressed. Preventative health care for disabled individuals is being made a low priority at the expense of our own well-being.
If we are to advance toward eliminating barriers to health and fitness, public and media attitudes and perceptions must continue to evolve. Media representation needs to include persons with disabilities exercising, participating in recreation, being fit, and staying health-conscious. We need to press fitness facilities, parks, community recreation centers, etc. to become more accessible, extending beyond the building structure to include accessible activities, classes and equipment.
In addition, we should all become aware of the barriers we create. We must break away from the Supercrip image and include a diversity of disabilities in advertising. We're not all young, fit, athletic, and attractive. But we all need the benefits of physical activity and recreation.
We need to advocate for inclusion in preventative health care issues and become more interested in health policy. Disability and health do not have to be mutually exclusive. We have the power to change perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes.