Designing a Body Image Health Campaign

Authors Avatar by aisha_issaoutlookcom (student)

Body Image Health Campaign

Body image refers to our idea of how our body looks and how we think it is seen by others. This can include our opinions and feelings about our height, weight, shape, skin, colour, and our appearance. Body image is influenced by culture and society because our values and attitudes toward our bodies are formed by the cultural group and society, we are living in. Body image can have severe implications for people’s emotional and physical well-being, and it’s a vital part of children age eleven and twelve development. Research has linked body discontent with grave mental health problems, including eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. These mental health problems greatly affect preteens.

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Aim

My aim is to educate young females and males that have just started secondary education into valuing their body. This is because girls and boys in year seven tend to be more insecure about their body compared to other year groups in secondary education. This may be due to puberty or a new environment. Primary schools have a smaller classroom size than high schools. This can make girls and boys that were already cautious about their body changing, more insecure because of a larger peer group subculture. Early or late bloomers may feel like they are developing differently to their peer groups. Therefore would feel like an outsider in their group. Paul Hudson article on ‘9 Things Insecure People Do That Ruins Their Lives’ states that “the more insecure you are, the more that insecurity weighs on your mind.” This is an indication that young girls and boys who are insecure about their body would be focusing more on judgements made by other people than other important things like homework. They would live in fear and hope that no one notices them. When their mind is consumed with their image, it can result on them not wanting to meet new people, holding themselves back and not working to their potential. This can affect their educational achievements or social circle. They may not be answering questions they know in a class discussion because of fear that they would stand out. Therefore, the teacher might see the student as underachieving and may give them easier work that is for the lower grade or moved to another classroom. Children are often teased by their peers. Being called ‘fat’ is still a common insult used to hurt someone emotionally.

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Target Audience

My target audience for my health campaign are boys and girls in year seven because pupils in year seven are more likely to be cautious and insecure about their body. The demographics of my target audience would be working-class and middle-class because pupils in my school have a household that is middle-class or working-class. This may be due to what I mentioned about the change in the environment and a different peer group subculture. I decided to choose both genders because body image can affect boys and girls. Girls are seen to be more self-critical about their body image than boys. This is because girls are judged on their appearance more than boys and standards of female beauty are much higher and more unyielding. Young girls are frequently bombarded with images of the 'ideal' face and figure. Endless exposure to idealised images of female beauty on TV, magazines and billboards makes incomparable good looks seem normal and anything short of perfection seem irregular and unpleasant. However, the pursuit for the perfect body is no longer viewed as a ‘girl’ thing.

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Boys are affected by the media's depictions of unrealistic body types. It is seen unmanly to admit that they are insecure of they’re body. Therefore, majority of them would be not be honest and more likely in denial. Boys are falling victim to the images of ideal bodies displayed across magazine covers, video games, films, music videos, and social media. Boys don’t want to lose weight like girls; they want to bulk up. Large muscles are normally related with good health, but then again what motivates an elven and twelve year old boy to accomplish that look can be far from healthy. Even though research on boys’ body image issues isn’t frequent as girls, it is clear that negative self-image can affect boys' physical and mental health. Boys are taught in an early age to believe that to be a man you would need to be physically strong. The pressure to be a man can cause boys to have a crash diet. A crash diet is a weight-loss diet, which consist of fruits and neglects proteins. This is unhealthy diet because it can make the person malnourish.

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Objective

I would tackle low self-esteem in preteens in the first year of secondary education by organising a focus group in the school I attend. The focus group would be for pupils in year seven only. This is because pupils in year seven tend to be more aware of the changes in their body due to a new environment that has much older students. If I make an impact in the start of a student’s secondary education, it would affect them positively throughout. In my school we have Extended Learning Day (ELD), which is a day where lessons are taken over by organisations to educate children. I would organise my event on an ELD because it wouldn’t interfere with students’ lessons. In my school there is six forms in every year group and each form has fifteen students. I would be targeting the whole of year seven pupils because I don’t want to exclude any pupils in that year group. There are some pupils that are scared to admit that they have a low self-esteem. I would also be organising this event with my local Youth Club. I am a part of a leadership group in my local Youth Club and I work with other adolescents that attend my school in organising events that would help our community. The people helping me conduct this campaign have had experienced in being a year seven student and had one point in their life had low-esteem about their body.

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Secondary Research

The government is worried that children suffer from negative feelings about their body image and this can affect their wellbeing and self-esteem. As an answer, the Government launched the body confidence campaign. This fast evidence assessment has been custom-built to inform the work of the campaign, focusing on the causes, consequences and potential interferences associated with body image. The government used rapid evidence assessment to gather information. The founding were: girls have lower satisfaction rates than boys. This is because girls are 63% satisfied with their appearance when compared to boys that were 74%. Studies show a number ...

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