My greatest passion- that *thing* that lights my soul on fire, is body image education. This weekend I was able to add kindling to that fire with two experiences. On Friday I was privileged enough to be a guest on my friend Tiffany Baker’s IGTV show- check out our Instagram Live here. We had a great conversation around self-compassion, finding balance in health, and raising kids in a world where the media still so often portrays one beauty narrative. During our conversation, I discussed a few activities that I do when I work with youth on these topics. This morning I facilitated a body image and media literacy workshop to the 8th grade Confirmation class at my local church. Facilitating these workshops is something that truly brings me joy, and I’ve been privileged enough to lead them for both youth and parents. I cover a lot of material during these presentations, and I am not going to go through everything I do, but I wanted to share an overview of what I do, and a couple of takeaways or skills that I hope to share during these workshops:

Body Image and Eating Disorders

Focus/takeaway: Definitions and statistics; how societal factors can influence health

I usually start by presenting to the youth facts and definitions about body image and eating disorders. I share some statistics about the prevalence of eating disorders, especially among teens, and the mortality rates. I briefly touch on specific eating disorders, and then we define what body image is and what outside factors could impact the way someone sees themselves.

Idealized Body Types and Media Literacy

Focus/takeaway: the ability to critically analyze media !

I lead the youth through a brainstorm activity in which we discuss the “ideal” body type portrayed in the media for both men and women. We talk about and I provide visual examples of whitewashing (in which Black people and people of color are photoshopped to have lighter skin), photoshop, and filters. I then introduce my favorite part of the workshop which is an ad analysis activity. The kids break off into groups and are given an ad and a set of questions to discuss. They’re usually the most talkative during and following this activity. We talk about the importance of being able to critically analyze media. I hope that I am providing them with the tools to understand that images in the media aren’t necessarily real, they aren’t healthy to attain, and the beginning understandings of the race and gender politics of it all.

Objectification and Representation

Focus/takeaway: recognizing objectification in the media and the importance of representation

I like to share examples of objectification of bodies in the media and introduce the concept of self-objectification. Depending on the age of the group, I might explain how objectification is related to violence against women. I usually share a trailer or clip from the film “Misrepresentation” and we discuss the importance of representation and diversity in front of and behind the camera- size, ability, gender, race, diversity.

As I said, this is such a broad topic that I could do a workshop on so many individual aspects of it all. My hope is that if youth get one thing out of it, it is that they can critically analyze the media and understand that there is no need to change anything about the way that they look, or who they are.