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Reflections launches annual ‘Love Your Body Week’ for body positivity
Reflections, a body positivity club, will host a series of events and discussions aimed at promoting the club’s message of self-care and self-love this week.
Love Your Body Week is seven days of yoga, guest talks and film screenings that hopes to combat the underlying issue of negative body image among students.
To host Love Your Body Week, Reflections teamed up with To Write Love on Her Arms, Uncle Joe’s and Active Minds—three organizations involved in mental health awareness and advocacy. This event isn’t the first time Reflections has worked with other student groups to tackle similar issues—earlier this month, they joined forces with a coalition of Greek chapters for Defeating Depression, a fundraiser for Communities Healing Adolescent Depression and Suicide (CHADS) Coalition.
Though Love Your Body Week gives Reflections a platform to advocate for body positivity, it also offers them an opportunity to chip away at their organization’s gender divide.
“We are composed mainly of women, and because of that, it has been easier for us to reach out to women,” sophomore Genevieve Leach, a co-chair of Love Your Body Week, said. “But we are very interested in reaching out to men, and also people of other gender identities, as well.”
However, there may be a statistical rationale for the gender bias in Reflections’ composition and outreach. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, a United States-based eating disorder advocacy organization, women account for two-thirds of eating disorder cases. Additionally, men account for only 10 percent of those affected, according to Anorexia and Related Eating Disorders, another nonprofit.
Sophomore Rachel Braly, a co-chair of Love Your Body Week, acknowledged that recruiting male members was challenging, a sentiment Leach echoed.
“It’s easy to acknowledge that diet culture affects women very strongly,” Leach said. “It’s harder to bring up the ways it affects men.”
Other events during the week will include a talk by former Dove Real Beauty Campaign model Stacy Nadeau on Tuesday, which is being co-sponsored by sorority Alpha Phi, and a workshop focusing on social media’s impact on body image on Saturday.