Problem, Process, Policy, and People

Luckily, STRIPED already has many resources that you can use to gather important information on the problem and the policy. Research into the problem of your issue will need to be shared with grassroots advocates, prospective coalition partners, lawmakers and their staff, public officials, and the media. When making your case, just remember that your audience does not need to know everything about your issue; they just need to know enough – and feel enough – to make a decision to take action.

When presenting the problem, we want to make sure that we have data that at a minimum includes:

• Scope of the problem to demonstrate how many people are impacted
  • Estimated number of people with eating disorders in the state
  • Number of ER visits due to eating disorders
  • Number of inpatient hospitalizations due to eating disorders
  • Estimated cost to the state’s economy as a result of eating disorders

• Demographics and characteristics of those most impacted
• Examples of celebrities, athletes or other public figures connected with your state who have gone public with their own experiences with eating disorders  or how they have been harmed by over-the-counter diet pills
  • “29 Stars Who Battled Eating Disorders — and Came Out Stronger”
  • “9 Celebrities with Eating Disorders”
  • “30 Celebrities Get Real About What It’s Like to Live With an Eating Disorder”
• Health effects of eating disorders, dieting,  and low body confidence
• How the problem will be improved by the proposed policy and the high cost of eating disorders (health care/lost productivity) . It is also important to acknowledge that you do not expect to solve the entire problem with this one standalone policy, that this is a first step.

Unfortunately, we do not have a large number of national and local data sets on eating disorders, diet industry marketing, or digital distortion, which means we will need to use the most reliable and up-to-date data sets available. In addition to the great data you can get from STRIPED, you may want to consider additional research to gather local or state data that will support your campaign, such as:

• Youth surveying youth: There is nothing more compelling to lawmakers than data about their community, collected by youth from their community, and explained to them by those same young people. Here’s an example of a youth survey and the results that were shared with lawmakers and the media in Massachusetts. Including questions about internet/social media influence in surveys should be considered. Below are some tools to get you started on developing a youth survey.
  • Developing your own youth survey
  • Engaging youth in leadership roles when advocating for body confidence
• Personal stories from people who have experience with your issue: First-person narratives are one of the most powerful forms of data in an advocacy campaign. Lawmakers represent people and if real people share their real stories of real need and real opportunities for change, lawmakers take notice. Personal stories also provide the important emotional content for the campaign. We will cover this a bit more in the Media Advocacy section but connecting on emotion rather than relying on intellect is a key to persuasion. We need to talk to the heart, not just the head!

Once you decided you want to take action to address your issue, you’ll need to determine the best process for changing policy and whether your efforts should be focused on local, county, or state policy change or regulation. Most cities, towns, counties, and states have an official clerk’s office and some staff that can respond to your inquiry. Here are some questions to ask when you contact their office.    

Do not be surprised if you have to speak with a few different people to get all of the information you need. Remain patient and friendly because these folks are often trusted gatekeepers to the decision-makers and making a positive impression on them is a good first step for your campaign.

In addition to having data to help you frame the problem and need for change, STRIPED also can help with model policy, developed by some great lawyers. You will need to adapt the model STRIPED Advocacy Campaigns policy for your city/state, but this will save you a lot of time.

That leaves the people. Once you figure out which decision-making body has the power to give you what you want and you can narrow down to the specific people within those bodies, such as committee chairs, leadership, etc., it will help to do some homework on the specific people holding those roles. This has gotten easy to do with the help of Google and other search engines. Learning as much as you can about those specific decision-makers serves two purposes: (1) it will help you develop campaign strategies to influence those people, and (2) it will inform your choice of legislative sponsor.

Below are some helpful tools to get you started:

• How to Conduct Pathways of Influence Research
• Worksheet: Pathways of Influence