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Thursday, November 04, 2010

Teaching Healthy Body Image

Teens today are inundated with messages about the "right" kinds of clothes they should wear and the "right" kinds of bodies they should have when wearing them. These messages, combined with other factors, begin damaging a child's body image at an early age.

A teaching curriculum titled Healthy Body Image has been developed to help counteract some of these negative influences.

"As before, carefully planned, engaging, age appropriate, cross-curricular lessons based on widely recognized prevention principles teach students to develop an identity based on inner strengths, not on appearance, understand normal weight gain during puberty, think critically about media messages..."

The curriculum is recommended by the U.S. Department of Health. The table of contents can be reviewed, and the curriculum purchased online.

Labels: body_image, influences, positive_messages

Posted By: Aspen Education Group

Comments:

Chelsea on 1/27/2011
Thinking critically about media messages should be an entire course taught in every school. We start out as tiny little consumers who think we have to have every toy and cereal and game we see in commercials, but at some point we have to be taught (or learn on our own) what messages are being sent. The overall message of any commercial is that our lives are not complete and our happiness not ensured unless we purchase their product or service. Kids and teenagers need to learn to see the big picture.