Wednesday 22 April 2009

Body image

I was travelling home late on the tube last night and was stood next to a group of young women.  I was really disturbed by the (loud) conversations about their body shapes and sizes - they were prodding, poking and pinching each other and themselves and shrieking at how fat they were, how disgusting they looked, how their clothes were too tight, how they were unattractive and deserved to be spotty.  In my view they were neither fat or spotty.  

Tonight I was heartened to observe an alternative sense of body confidence as I crossed Clapham Common - there was another group of young women who were posing to and for each other - they were a similar size, a similar shape and a similar age - yet they were flicking their hair, smiling and glowing with confidence.

At Brook we get phone calls every day from young people who are worried about their bodies - are they normal, do they look like everyone else and they need a lot of reassurance.  The only thing that is normal about our bodies is that they are always different.  We have to make sure that young people get the chance to feel confident in their bodies.  


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