You may be aware that the week commencing 3rd September 2007 was National Body Image / Eating Disorder Awareness week. I thought I would attach the following article for your interest and to assist you in your vital work in this area – it is an article from the Professional School Counseling Journal, February 2007, and is entitled counseling-adolescent-girls-for-body-image-resilience.doc

It is an American journal article but highly relevant to the Australian school context. The model identifies five protective factors that contribute to girls’ abilities to resist sociocultural pressures regarding thinness. Specific prevention and counseling strategies that school counselors (and teachers) can use to promote positive body image in adolescent girls are provided.

I was particularly interested in this finding:

Rather than a pathology-driven model that emphasizes treatment for the concerns of girls in clinical samples, the most promising programs incorporate protective factors that build on girls’ strengths, promote resilience, and buffer them from the development of body dissatisfaction and subsequent disordered eating practices.”

The article goes on to provide a number of practical strategies and presents a large body of research to support its recommendations.

Well worth a cuppa and a read.

The poignent poem below is by Claire Clements. Claire first contacted me after seeing us featured on A Current Affair in May 2006. We were profiled along with Professor Susan Paxton, Australia’s preeminent expert on girls and eating disorders. It is my understanding that Claire has struggled to gain weight and regain her health after a long period of illness.

It is really quite powerful and I thank her for sharing:
CURVES By Claire Clements

I am being reborn

Learning to breathe again

And with this comes awakening

Of the body and the mind

I have never been a woman

Though, once, I believed I was

Looking through a window

To a field I thought more green

But the window now has curtains

Which I keep shut tight

And for a while I lived in shadow

Alone

Void, even, of my soul

But now I am emerging

Not like a butterfly, no

But like a caterpillar

Feasting on fresh new leaves

Preparing for what I, eventually, will be

But now, here I am

Expanding. Growing.

And how wonderful it feels

To run your hands over your body

And feel pure meat and flesh

Not bones

To be feeding off flavours

Not internal organs

To look and see molehills

Not indentations

To breathe without fearing

For the pressure on my heart

To shower and take pleasure

In lathering my stomach

To have eyes appreciate my curves

Looking at them with relief, pride, happiness

Not eyes full of sexual hunger

Not eyes of a man

But with eyes of a friend

A parent, a sibling, a niece

To sit with my cat

Without her falling off my lap

To feel that life may actually be achievable

And not live in a cloud of despair

To have curves

Finally

Like the
Queens and beauties

In paintings from before

Like Cassandra

Like a goddess

Like a bear

Like a caterpillar

Storing up the padding

To last me through my transformation

Until I am that butterfly

To use food for its intended

A celebration of life

Of Nature

To finally be a woman

That you can look upon

Without grimacing in disgust

For I am on my way to curves

And I have never felt more beautiful.