Promoting Body Positivity in Adolescents

 

Body positivity means feeling comfortable and happy with shape, size and appearance of your body. In it, it does not matter what are the societal norms are or how society or people around you want to see you. It is accepting who you are and developing in that skin. This movement have been going on for a long time where people have been realizing their true value and working towards it.

Inculcating this thought of body positivity can start from a very young age of 11 years. These years are the basis for the development of positivity and confidence in self. The direction or the guidance given to the children from the 11 and onwards stays with them for long.

The growing influence of social media and increase of showcasing to the world a fake happiness with materialism with too much focus on the physical appearance. All these factors have somewhere instilled in the coming generation that may be these are the source of happiness or positivity in their lives. Following are few attributes of how an adolescent gets affected due to lack of positivity:

• Low self-esteem
• Easily getting distracted
• Self-doubt
• Low mood
• Easily irritated

The above mentioned are just the tip of what an adolescent experiences when they doubt their own appearance. If this doubt continuous for a longer duration it could lead to anxiety problems or eating disorders in them. It is necessary for the care givers or the counsellors to observe and talk to teenagers who might seem on the verge of developing these disorders.

At Bright Side of Life we understand that eating disorders like Bulimia Nervosa (binge eating disorder where the individual also indulges into unhealthy activities to lose weight) and Anorexia Nervosa (low body weight due to the fear of gaining weight) are something that an individual does not indulge into knowingly. They are compelled by their anxiousness and negative mindset into developing these disorders.

We know that teenagers are vulnerable to these kind of issues as they see adults doing this stuff, they feel that it is the right thing to do but they are unaware of the extent to which these kinds of activities lead them to. There have been researches that have shown that this consciousness related to the physical appearance starts from the very age of 6 years. This shows that a lot of it comes from how a parent, or a care behaves in front of their kids.

With our diversely experienced psychologists, we curate the implementation of the counselling session according to the needs of the child. With continuous sessions, we work towards helping the child to have a positive mindset towards their own body. By conducting assessments, we try to evaluate the condition of the child.