Anti-bias body image curriculum for high schools

Dear Friend, 

Children today spend so much of their time on social media, where they are constantly comparing their appearance to others’ highly-edited pictures. This has created a culture where 70% of adolescent girls and 40% of adolescent boys don’t feel comfortable in their own skin. For adolescents, having a negative perception of their body can then lead to more serious consequences such as eating disorders, depression, isolation, anxiety, risky sexual behavior, substance abuse, and low self-esteem. 

BE REAL addresses these mental health issues by spreading free, evidence-based body confidence resources to schools across the country. Our curriculum and workshops are designed to teach children how to develop healthy relationships with food and their bodies. 

We are proud to report that our high school curriculum, Be Real’s BodyKind has just finished its pilot phase. These are the highlights: 

1. We brought together a team of body image academics, psychologists, and teachers from Ireland, Australia, and the University of North Carolina to create Be Real’s BodyKind body image curriculum for high school students.  
2. Be Real student interns researched the body image problems people suffer due to “appearance bias” based on a person's race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, body size, ability, and socioeconomic status.  
3. Workshops and presentations were showcased across the US in preparation for the study.  We delivered BodyKind to over 75 students and 10 teachers to get their feedback before we took it to Brooklyn Center Community High School. 
4. BodyKind in Brooklyn Center Community High School in Minnesota.  We are finishing our pilot study this month. We delivered all four lessons and surveyed 150 students before and after the lessons.   

Thank you for your past support at GlobalGiving. Please consider supporting us again in 2022! 
 

Confidently yours, 

Denise Hamburger 
Executive Director of BE REAL