In our year 10 health option class, we were given the task to create a poster promoting positive body image. Body image is how you think and feel about your body, it can either be negative or positive. Other terms we’ve learned about were body positivity, body negativity, and body neutrality.
Body image is very important because feeling negative about yourself can really affect your self-esteem and change the way you act in unhelpful ways. Whereas, if you challenge yourself to uplift and accept the body you have despite the changes in size and shape, it can be very powerful for your wellbeing. Enjoying the body you have and not beating yourself up from the changes happening in your body is important especially when you're young. This is because our body is constantly changing and growing.
During the last few weeks, I was able to create a few slides based on influencers who use their platform to promote positive body image. For example, Harnaam Kaur is a motivational speaker who has grown to embrace her unusual appearance as a bearded lady but celebrates her difference most uniquely and beautifully. She helps others cope and deals with body shaming and bullying. Devon Taverner-Hailou is also another influencer who uses her disability to change society’s perspective of disabled people. Devon has a rare condition called Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency (PFFD) that causes her to have no thigh bone in her left leg and does not have all the bones in her left hip as well, which makes her left leg smaller than her right leg. She is also profoundly deaf so she has to wear hearing aids. Her goal is to give disabled people a chance to be heard and bring awareness to them all to display them in the most positive way. Elisabeth Van Aalderen is a professional photographer who developed a skin condition called Vitiligo. She uses her platform by creating a series called “shades of pale” to celebrate each individual of women with vitiligo to celebrate how stunning their skin looks.
