Old Main 560
(360) 650-2993
pws@wwu.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday
8:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m.

Positive Body Image

"Beauty is not a state of body... It is a state of mind."- Unknown

These students focus on developing a positive relationship with our bodies, finding freedom from calorie counting, disordered eating, excessive exercise patterns, and fat phobia.

Main messages:

• Discover ways to listen to and love your body!


• Both men and women are affected by poor body esteem.


• Poor body esteem can lead to disordered eating and unhealthy exercise patterns, fat phobia, and depression.


• Some people are genetically predisposed to be thin, as others are genetically predisposed to be heavy.


• There is an interaction between poor body esteem and cultural messages that portray a single, narrowly defined standard of beauty.


• Beauty is culturally constructed.


• It is hurtful and a mistake to judge thin or heavy persons as having an eating disorder.


• There are healthy ways to gain weight and lose weight.


• Don’t judge someone’s insides by their outsides.


• There is a difference between loss of more than 25% of your body weight and persons who want to feel better physically.