I recently attended the "Appearance Matters" Conference at the University of Bristol, which heightened my knowledge of the research behind self confidence and physical appearance. Within my role at Edinburgh Leisure, I feel we do a great job targeting teenage girls, and vulnerable young people to help them improve confidence within the realm of health and physical activity, but also to teach understanding of general confidence and build self esteem. The Health 4U Program targets third year girls and teaches various components of health and wellbeing as well as communication, dealing with stress, mental health, photoshopping, energy balance etc. I believe its a great tool for young people to have a better understanding of these components and learn in an interactive way. During the lessons, we use some videos created by the Dove Self Esteem Project. Thirteen million young people reached through the Dove Self Esteem program, with providing education to help build self esteem. I also use the videos for psychology particulary when working with coaches on building self confidence and helping them understand some of the issues that young people may face. The presenter from the Dove Project noted: Only 4% of women consider themselves beautiful. 9/10 would change something about themselves 6/10 opt out of activity because of body image These startling figures makes me even more keen to try to teach young people about self acceptance and feeling good about themselves. In a world were society defines what is beautiful, and what is normal, its even more important to teach young people to love themselves for being themselves. The thin ideal is hard to obtain and can lead to maladaptive perfectionism as these ideals are unrealistic, and when people cannot obtain them, and their self confidence comes from their appearance, then they will rarely have the feeling of self satisfaction. The Dove Project use fortune cookies with self esteem messages in them, and I received one of my favorite quotes.Check out their website for more information and great resources for working with young people about self esteem and body image. Most of the time, we think about negative body image, and how people feel negatively about themselves. How can we encourage a positive body image rather just eradicating the negative? When a person has positive body image, they have an appreciation for their body which led to health related behaviours. I find that with my psychology I try to promote individuals strengths, rather than just working on how we can improve their weaknesses. Therefore, by knowing what a positive body image, we can find ways to teach young people how to have confidence and have positive body image, rather than just helping those with severe negative body image. Promote a positive body image by:
Also, in line with my approach to psychology, would be looking at body image in line with goal setting, One study examined the motivation and goals for body image, and compared the differences between those with health goals and those with appearance goals. Those who had appearance goals had a feeling of "have to" and a feeling of pressure to look a certain way. This promoted guilt and shame, and could become maladaptive. This is my fear for those purely wanting to lose weight to look a certain way. What happens when you weigh what you want to weigh? Will you feel good about yourself? Will that make you a better person? Will it be healthy? Those who have health goals feel like they 'want' to be healthy, and health is a personal importance to them rather than a need. They are motivated internally, and living a healthy life is just part of their every day. Having the 'want to' feeling is more adaptive and can result in more self satisfaction. Those with "health goals" were more likely to engage in healthy eating, and decreased binge-eating, whereas those with "appearance goals" were motivated by drive for thinness and engaged in binge eating.
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AuthorTracy Donachie, MSc in Performance Psychology. Archives
May 2019
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