As part of our living and learning this week, we have been discussing body image and body confidence. We began by looking at the definition of body image – our idea of how our body looks and how we think it looks to others. This can include feelings and thoughts. Body confidence is about how we feel about the way we look. Our society tells us that there is an ideal way to look. This is called an ‘appearance ideal.’ With that in mind, we need to remember that these ideals are:
- impossible to achieve
- always changing
- unrealistic
We talked about how the media leads to detrimental ways in which we look at our bodies – we make comparisons We need to remember that the majority of images we see through the media have been ‘touched up’ and edited in some way.
The children had to think about how they personally feel about body image and what their confidence levels are like. The task in the lesson was each person had to think about positive things about themselves and which body parts they liked and why?
Where can you go for help?
Talk to your teacher or another trusted adult, in or out of school.
Put your worry in the class worry box.
Talk to your friends.
Contact ChildLine – 0800 1111