Body Diversity
Body Diversity and Body Image
When we talk about body diversity we enter a familiar conversation on body image. Body image refers to our perceptions of our bodies, including how we feel about them, how we feel in them, and our beliefs about our appearance. Since the 2004 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, the conversation about body positivity continues to evolve. While social media is still a source of criticism in the links between ‘toxic content’ and body dysmorphia, mental health, and disordered eating, research continues to evolve on body image across the gender spectrum and how digital innovations in body representation and perception play a part. Our goal at the Women’s Center is to engage with these complex challenges by creating a safe space for dialogue about reframing our purpose, treating ourselves with compassion, and celebrating the innate dignity of our bodies and body diversity.
Recognized annually in October, Love Your Body Week draws attention to the commercial objectification of women’s bodies and the promotion of unhealthy products and practices for all genders to achieve an ideal image of health and beauty. Normative concepts of beauty are narrow, unrealistic, and create dysfunction in the ways we conceptualize health and beauty and perform gender. The Love Your Body campaign challenges the message that a person’s value is best measured through willingness and ability to embody narrow beauty standards. This challenge is enacted on campus through fun, engaging experiences designed by SAGE, (our student organization committed to gender equity and inclusion), based on their current interests in body diversity and inclusive wellbeing practices. Check out 1850 in the weeks leading up to October to see what PATH eligible experiences they design!
Disordered eating affects a variety of people, regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, or background. The typical onset of eating disorders occurs during the college years. Increasingly research has revealed the ties between disordered eating and gender identity, as well as the heightened risk for gender diverse and trans individuals and the need for more intersectional research. Certain experiences in Love Your Body Week feature wellness related to eating, so be sure to check out those events on 1850!