It think tight regulation of advertisement industry could help. They really have all the incentive to make people feel worse. It directly translates to their income.
There should be pre-publishing check on every advert. Like a focus group paid for by advertiser, but organized by government body. If it makes people feel worse after watching it it shouldn't be allowed to publish.
Advertisement is not a free speech.
Yes it obviously is. Even advertisements that make people feel bad are free speech.
https://truthinadvertising.org/resource/federal-laws-governi...
(Although, IANAL, so I can't tell if that page is an accurate summary or if it's the legal equivalent of someone ranting about why the CEO of Facebook can't stop naughty pictures showing up in Google search results…)
"The Supreme Court extended First Amendment free speech protection to commercial speech in Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. (1976). The court held that commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment because it serves the public interest by providing information about products and services."
And since it became apparent that it's not the only thing it does, but also hurts people and leads to destruction of social and natural environment that decision should get reversed after 46 years. Especially since technology enabled us to have a single all encompassing catalog of products and services which customers can draw such information from whenever they request it instead of advertisements being shoved into their faces from all sources causing them psychological harm.
While we can't change society, we can make personal choices or choices within our families. I would say that it's beneficial to recognize parts of the modern world that are illusory and attempt to scale them back or avoid them.
On the other side, in the west, we have a very body-centered idea of self-worth, exaggerated by TV, music and social media. Fundamentally, I do not see this situation getting any better because of how society is wired right now. There are more dramatical changes needed than what we are perhaps capable of.
3 main changes that might help come to mind -
1. We are in an obesity epidemic. Acknowledge this, make changes in the eating and exercise habits, feed children less sugar, especially what’s provided at school during lunch.
2. Due to most kids being overweight, find ways to acknowledge their other talents. Encourage high school kids to find paid work. Help them derive self-worth from other avenues.
3. Help them learn to work their minds. It does not need to be esoteric eastern meditation techniques but learning to sit still for 20 mins a day and watch the breath, and one more time for 5 mins or so before sleep, will have tremendous transference to the rest of one’s life.