Body Image Awareness Seminars “Reshaping your mind, not your body!” Aly Bailey, PhD Candidate aly.bailey@brocku.ca BIAS Website: http://bias.my-free.website/

Agenda: Seminar 5 Topic: Respecting the body Take home task: Opportunity to share Introduction to intuitive eating Activity: Intuitive eating Video: Poodle science Presentation: Embodied exercise & benefits to body image Take home task

What makes you unique? Take home task discussion Opportunity to share your 5 unique qualities

Intuitive Eating Questions: What factors influence what or when you eat? What factors influence when you don’t eat and what you don’t eat? Definition: Eating based on physiological hunger & fullness cues rather than situational & emotional cues Mindful eating

Intuitive Eating Physical Hunger Emotional Hunger Tends to come gradually VS Feels sudden and urgent Can be satisfied with any food Causes very specific cravings (e.g., pizza, ice cream) Once full you’re likely to stop eating You tend to eat more OR less than you normally would Doesn’t cause feelings of guilt or shame Can cause strong feelings of guilt and shame

Intuitive Eating Activity Follow these steps carefully 1. Observe the food 2. Smell the food 3. Place on your tongue – let it sit there 4. Take a bite and chew slowly 5. Swallow after a few chews

An Alternative Perspective Poodle Science Thoughts and comments?

Thoughts?

An Alternative Perspective Health at Every Size® Should still be examined with a critical lens Focus is on taking blame and guilt away because if blame worked no one would be overweight Focus is off weight and on behaviour change and improving relationship with body and food Focus is off weight and on behaviour because you can control your behavior, weight you cannot control - it is not a behaviour.

Embodied Exercise Dancing Street dancing Modern dancing Belly dancing All had significantly higher body appreciation than non-dancers Yoga Lower emphasis on appearance Related to health & fitness (function) Although ballet dancing is associated with negative body image and eating disorders, other forms of dance are associated with positive body image Street dancers – weight dissatisfied (comparable to general public) but highly appreciative of their bodies Modern dance – high in appreciation Belly dance – although thought of as sexualized, belly dancers showed higher appreciation and lower self-objectification All three dance have commonality in value in diversity of body size and shape than traditional forms of dance Another example of dance that may be associated with positive body image is ballroom although there is no research on this type of dance just yet.

Program Readings Comments? Questions? NEDIC blog reading – Body positivity! http://nedic.ca/blog/body-positivity-8- things-ive-learned-university

Take home task Write a letter to your sister, brother, child, grandchild, niece, nephew, spouse, or closest friend about how you think they should treat their bodies from what you have learned in this program.

We will return to this in seminar 6 Take home task Write down as many positive things about your body as you can. Goal: 10 We will return to this in seminar 6

Body Image Awareness Seminars “People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing you are the beholder” - Salma Hayek