‘Love Your Body Week’ and Body Positivity Initiatives Encourage Self Compassion for Students
LONG BEACH, Calif. (Sept. 20, 2018) –Several self-care initiatives are launching in the upcoming weeks at Long Beach State University, including one study of students participating in a body positivity workshop.
An eight-week workshop will be held at the Health Resource Center for students and focus on reclaiming health, cultivating self-love, reducing an individual’s critical inner voice and learning ‘intuitive self-care’ through journaling, art therapy and forms of group expression. For the first time this year, the center will launch a study with student participants to measure their changes in self-compassion, eating disorders, depression and resiliency.
So far, 65 students in nine cohorts have taken the workshop and have shown a demonstrable, statistically significant improvement on the self-compassion scale.
“This program has really affected students’ lives in many positive ways,” said Angela Girard, associate director of Student Health Services.
Much of the work being done at the workshops is trying to reverse negative body and self-talk that is taught at a young age. A recent article in HuffPost found that nearly half of girls between the ages of 3- and 6-years-old say they worry about being fat.
“What we know from research right now is that the messages kids pick up start at really, really young ages,” said sociologist Lori Baralt, who serves as a member of the body positivity core group. “When we ask toddlers what’s attractive, it’s already a narrow standard of beauty. Particularly for girls because that’s emphasized for girls in society.
“People don’t feel good about themselves,” Baralt said. “We’re seeing that at younger and younger ages.”
To combat these pressures, a host of events will be held on campus the week of Oct. 22 through Oct. 26 at the Student Recreation and Wellness Center and University Student Union, including blind yoga, massage chairs, outdoor yoga and blindfolded rock climbing for students to engage with their senses other than sight.
“At the Student Recreation and Wellness Center our goal is to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all and to promote that we have something for everybody,” said Sean Pellerin, Recreation Sports Coordinator. “Love Your Body Week provides the platform to celebrate the individual and encourage positive views towards one’s body and self.”
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About the campus: Long Beach State University is a teaching-intensive, research-driven university committed to providing highly valued undergraduate and graduate degrees critical for success in the globally minded 21st century. Annually ranked among the best universities in the West and among the best values in the entire nation, the university’s eight colleges serve more than 37,500 students. The campus values and is recognized for rich educational opportunities provided by excellent faculty and staff, exceptional degree programs, diversity of its student body, fiduciary and administrative responsibility and the positive contributions faculty, staff, students and more than 300,000 alumni make on society.
