Love your body image at MU this week
Love Your Body Week is designed to educate students on body image.
Feb. 5, 2008
Junior Tracey Latimore looks at flyers advertising Love Your Body Week on Monday in Brady Commons. The Wellness Resource Center and the Women's Center are putting on events this week to promote a healthy body image.
In response to unhealthy body images promoted in the media, the MU Women’s Center is sponsoring a week of events as part of Love Your Body Week.
The week was created to educate students and others about body image as well as the warning signs, symptoms and health risks associated with eating disorders and programs available for aiding recovery.
“It’s about accepting all different shapes and sizes of body, and being healthy and comfortable and we provide a lot of different resources about how to get healthy,” sophomore Allison Harris said.
Harris works at the Women’s Center.
The Women’s Center is presenting instructional discussion all week in 234 Brady Commons starting at noon, according to the Women’s Center Web site. Lunch will be provided to the first people to arrive. There will be five events, each with a specific message relating to a healthy perception of body image.
Presentations will cover issues like the history of women in sports, addressing fallacies of body image and confronting “fat phobia” in the media. On Wednesday, the center is hosting a “Stop the Violence Resource Fair” at 10 a.m.
The center’s staff has also set up a table with free pins, candy and information for those who are interested in hearing more about improving body image or how to help friends or family struggling with an eating disorder.
Also provided at the table is additional information on how to prevent eating disorders and the role of society on the topic of body image.
MU doctoral student Monique Mendoza gave the first presentation on Monday, entitled “Adios Barbie Revisited.” This presentation was a continued discussion from the year before on Latina body image.
“Last year we talked about images and how those images have impacted body image and body satisfaction or dissatisfaction,” Mendoza said.
The Wellness Resource Center and MU’s Eating Disorder Task Force also sponsored the event.
Heath Educator Kim Webb, who works at the Student Health Center Health Promotion Department, said she has been affiliated with Love Your Body Week.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to gain more awareness about their bodies and the role the media plays in projecting body images,” she said.
Webb also chairs the Eating Disorder Task Force.
“We have had wonderful involvement with students, with a lot of students participating in the presentations,” she said.
She said there has been a lot of positive student feedback from the week.
Webb said the presentations are each funded by a department on campus, including the Wellness Resource Center, the Multicultural Center and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning Resource Center.
“It’s a very collaborative effort,” Webb said. “We have had some opportunities for community involvement and people to make some donations just to help raise awareness.”
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